Donald Grant Age, Girlfriend, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Donald Grant

• Donald Grant was a Black American man who conducted double murders during a robbery at La Quinta Inn in Del City in 2001 in order to leave no witnesses to the robbery. He was executed by the lethal injection method on 27 January 2022 by the state of Oklahoma.

• During the crack epidemic of the 1980s, Grant was brought up at a housing project in New York City.

• As a child, he was regularly beaten by his family members as they experienced alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illness.
  

  An old picture of Donald Grant

• Donald Grant had a very troubled childhood. During an interview, while talking about his childhood with a reporter, one of his relatives said,
  

  The refrigerator was locked when he was 8 years old and the grandmother would only feed the girls and the boys had to go on the streets to steal food basically.”

• Grant carried out a robbery at La Quinta Inn in Del City in July 2001 to steal money for his girlfriend’s bail. He was 25 years old at that time.

• During the robbery, he opened fire on two hotel employees, so that there would be no witnesses to his robbery. While one of them died instantly, Grant killed the other one using a knife.

• The two women whom Donald killed were 29-year-old Brenda McElyea and 43-year-old Felicia Suzette Smith.

• As soon as he reached his home after committing the crime, Grant wrote a confession letter. The letter read,
  

  So I’m sitting in the house cleaning my gun with a kill on my mind for whoever’s is there.”

• He was held guilty in the murder case of Brenda McElyea and Felicia Suzette Smith in 2005 and was sentenced to death.

• Since the U.S. Supreme Court announced the verdict, Donald Grant, filed various appeals to have his sentence overturned.

• Two of his attorneys Susan Otto and Emma Rolls affirmed that Grant was subject to violent abuse in childhood by his alcoholic father and as a result suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and mental illness. His circumstances made him an appropriate candidate for mercy.

• They even tried to delay his execution giving examples of the problems that occurred during John Grant’s execution in October 2021. Donald’s lawyers recalled in the court that John Grant made various violent movements after he was injected with the first drug, the sedative midazolam. His body suffered from convulsions and vomited several times before dying.

• During the hearing, the victims’ family members requested the board to serve justice. They appealed the board to reject his clemency request.

• At the hearing, one of McElyea’s sisters recalled how difficult it was for her to inform her father about her sister’s murder. She said,
  

  I had to call my dad and tell him his daughter, his baby girl, was dead. I had never seen him cry, but that night I heard him weep and it broke my heart.”

• Later, during a hearing in November 2021, Grant accepted his crime and told the board that it was him who killed Felicia Suzette Smith and Brenda McElyea. He told the board that he committed the crime as he wanted to leave no witnesses to his robbery at the hotel. Expressing deep remorse, Grant apologized for the killings and blamed the devil for it. He said,
  

  First and foremost … I’d like to express my … sincere deep regrets and remorse for my actions. I know words can’t bring them back. I understand. … I can’t change that. You know, I wish I could and everything.”

  

  Donald Grant during his clemency hearing at at Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board

• However, later, the court was informed that he had brutally shot Brenda McElyea, the INN manager as she begged for her life. After that, he shot Suzette Smith, the front desk clerk, three times in her face and then slit her throat with a knife. He also beat her over the head with a computer monitor, a VCR, and his gun.

• The vote to reject his clemency request was 4-1, after which The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied his clemency appeal and scheduled his execution on January 27, 2022, through the lethal injections method.

• He had earlier asked the federal judge to put a stay at his execution until a trial over Oklahoma’s three-drug lethal injection method can be held.

• He had also requested the U.S. Supreme Court to offer him killing by firing squad method, stating that the method was less painful and quick.

• On 26 January 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last appeal for an emergency stay.

• A few hours before his execution on 27 January 2022, The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK CADP) protested outside the governor’s mansion to stop his execution.

• There were 18 witnesses present at the time of his execution which included a few news reporters, prosecutors, a police chief, his victims family members, and his loved ones.

• Before his execution, Grant was given two minutes to deliver his final speech. He began by saying,
  

  Yo, God, I got this. I’m solid, son. No meds, no nothing. I’m solid.”

  He added,

  I’m going to go to the universe, and then I’ll be back. God is here. The true god.”

  Grant then began chanting unintelligible and started speaking about the seven witnesses who attended the execution on his behalf. Later, a prison staff member told him to stop speaking as his two minutes were over, however, Grant didn’t stop and kept on speaking about his family members. Soon, his microphone was put off, but he still kept speaking.

• In the end, Donald constantly stared at his family members present in the first row of the witness room and tears began rolling down his eyes.

• Thereafter, a personnel at The Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester entered his room and injected him with the first drug at around 10:03 a.m. He fell unconscious at around 10:08 a.m. and subsequently, breathed his last at 10:16 a.m.

• Donald Grant’s execution was the 1541st execution in the U.S. since capital punishment was resumed in the U.S. in 1976 according to the U.S. Death Penalty Information Center.

• One of Grant’s victims’ McElyea’s family was very happy after his execution as they felt that justice was finally served. Shirl Pilcher, McElyea’s sister, while talking to the reporters after Grant’s execution said,
  

  Although Donald Grant’s execution does not bring Brenda back, it allows us all to finally move forward knowing that justice was served. Our memories can hopefully be less jaded and clouded by the past. For me, whenever I have a thought of her I always have to go back to, ‘Is he going to get out? Is something going to change? And now today I know that that’s finally over and that’s done.”

  She further said,

  I hope that now when … when I think of her, I can go straight to that memory, whether it was when I first brought my daughter home from the hospital (Brenda) was there. Hopefully, those types of memories can come to the foreground and I don’t have to go through the past to be able to remember the memory of her instead of the memory of her death.”

• For his last meal, Donald Grant asked for a very large and delicious meal. The meal included sesame chicken, six egg rolls, shrimp fried rice, and a large apple fritter. In case the dessert was not available, he chose three pints of strawberry ice cream as an alternative.