Roger Dale Stafford

Infobox Serial Killer
name=Roger Dale Stafford


image_size=152px
caption=
birthname=Roger Dale Stafford
alias=
birth= November 4, 1951
location=
death=Oklahoma State Penitentiary
death date and age|1995|7|1|1951|11|4
cause=lethal injection
victims=nine
country=USA
states=Oklahoma
beginyear=
endyear=1995
apprehended=
penalty=capital punishment

Roger Dale Stafford (November 4, 1951-July 1, 1995) was a convicted serial killer sentenced to death and executed for the 1978 Lorenz-Sirloin Stockade murders.

Crimes

Stafford began his killing spree along with his wife, Verna, and brother, Harold, on June 22, 1978. His wife flagged down the Lorenz family on the side of Interstate 35 near Purcell, Oklahoma when Melvin Lorenz, 38, his wife, Linda, 31, and their son Richard, 12, were traveling to North Dakota for the funeral of Melvin Lorenz's mother. Stafford then robbed and murdered the entire family.

Three weeks later, he murdered six employees at a Sirloin Stockade restaurant in Oklahoma City during a robbery.

Capture and trial

Six days after the Sirloin Stockade robbery, Harold Stafford died in a motorcycle accident in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Police traced a woman who went to see his body at a local funeral home to Chicago, Illinois, where they found and arrested Verna Stafford. They soon apprehended Roger Stafford as well. [http://www.tulsaworld.com/webextra/itemsofinterest/centennial/centennial_storypage.asp?ID=070308_1_A7_Roger00052] He was tried and convicted of all nine murders, and sentenced to death. His wife Verna testified against him, and divorced him while he was on death row. (She was sentenced to two life terms for her part in the crimes.) He remarried while awaiting execution.

Execution

Stafford was executed in Oklahoma by lethal injection on July 1, 1995. In his last words, he proclaimed his innocence and his love for the wife he married in prison.

Footnotes