Convicted murderer in 16-year-old double homicide will not face death penalty

Prosecutors in Tulsa County have decided to no longer seek the death penalty for a man convicted of a double homicide in 1999.

52-year-old Victor Cornell Miller is convicted in the fatal shootings of retired Tulsa banker, 77-year-old Mary Agnes Bowles and Owasso trucking company owner, 44-year-old Jerald Thurman.

The First Assistant District Attorney John David Luton announced the decision Tuesday in court, stating he came to this conclusion after talking with the victims' families.

Miller has fought a legal battle against Oklahoma since the jury convicted him in 2002.

In November 2008, a jury delivered a death penalty for Miller on each of two counts of first-degree murder.

An earlier conviction was overturned by an appeals court in 2004 and Miller was granted a new trial.

Nine years later, Miller was formally sentenced on December 8, 2008 to two death sentences for the Tulsa County double homicide.

Most recently in 2013, the Court of Criminal Appeals modified his death sentence for one murder to life in prison without parole then directed a district court to resentence him on the other murder conviction.

Co-defendant George John Hanson is currently serving a death sentence for one of the murders but that outcome is on appeal.

Bowles was kidnapped from the Tulsa Promenade mall parking lot on Aug. 31, 1999 then driven to a secluded area in northern Tulsa County, where she was killed.

Thurman was picking up a load of dirt in that secluded area at the time and was also shot to death.

District Judge Dana Kuehn is scheduled to sentence Miller on Dec. 18.