A 25-year pursuit of justice culminates in McAlester
November 12, 2026, 11:45 a.m. Central time.
The state of Oklahoma executed 73-year-old death row inmate James Pavatt by lethal injection on Thursday morning, bringing to a close a notorious quarter-century capital murder case that captivated and shocked the state. Pavatt was condemned for the premeditated November 2001 slaying of 39-year-old advertising executive Robert Dale "Rob" Andrew, whom Pavatt and his lover—Andrew’s estranged wife, Brenda Andrew—ambushed to collect an $800,000 life insurance payout.
Prison officials at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester administered the three-drug lethal cocktail beginning at 10:01 a.m. Pavatt, strapped to the gurney in the death chamber, declined the opportunity to deliver any final statement when asked by prison warden Jim Farris. He was officially pronounced dead eleven minutes later, at 10:12 a.m., according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
Following the execution, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond released a formal statement emphasizing the profound and permanent loss suffered by Andrew’s surviving relatives. “Justice has been served for Rob Andrew, who was taken from his children and his family far too soon,” Drummond said. “I pray that his family finds some sense of peace after 25 years of grief.”
The $800,000 life insurance conspiracy and garage ambush
The murder of Rob Andrew on November 20, 2001, unfolded like the plot of a lurid crime noir. Pavatt, a life insurance agent and former Sunday school teacher, had become romantically entangled with Brenda Andrew while helping her husband purchase an $800,000 life insurance policy. As marital discord between the Andrews deepened into divorce proceedings, prosecutors demonstrated that Pavatt and Brenda Andrew conspired to assassinate Rob Andrew before he could legally remove Brenda as the sole beneficiary of the policy.
Weeks prior to the fatal shooting, an initial plot had failed when Rob Andrew discovered that the brake lines on his automobile had been deliberately severed while parked at his workplace. Despite Andrew alerting authorities to his suspicions that his estranged wife and Pavatt were attempting to end his life, the pair lured him to the couple's former Oklahoma City home under the pretense of picking up his two young children for Thanksgiving.
When Andrew arrived and walked into the garage, Pavatt and Brenda Andrew were lying in wait armed with shotguns. Rob Andrew was shot twice in the chest and abdomen at close range. Brenda Andrew sustained a superficial, self-inflicted gunshot wound to her arm in an attempt to stage the scene as a robbery perpetrated by unknown masked home invaders, as established by forensic ballistics and testimony during the trial.
A desperate flight to Mexico and decades of legal appeals
The staged home invasion quickly crumbled under police interrogation. Within days, Pavatt and Brenda Andrew fled the country, taking the Andrew children—then aged 10 and 7—across the southern border into Mexico. An international manhunt ensued, lasting three months until Mexican federal authorities and U.S. Marshals apprehended the fugitives in late February 2002 as they attempted to re-cross into Texas after exhausting their financial resources.
Tried separately in Oklahoma County District Court in 2003 and 2004, both Pavatt and Brenda Andrew were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, with juries recommending the death penalty for both conspirators. Brenda Andrew remains on Oklahoma's death row at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, where her remaining legal appeals are pending.
Pavatt's defense attorneys had pursued exhaustive state and federal appeals over two decades, arguing ineffective assistance of trial counsel and challenging the state's three-drug execution protocol. In October 2026, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board rejected Pavatt's bid for clemency in a 2–3 vote, clearing the way for Thursday's execution, according to reports by the Associated Press and Fox News.
Chronology of the Rob Andrew murder case and appeals
November 20, 2001: Rob Andrew, 39, is ambushed and fatally shot in the garage of his Oklahoma City residence; Brenda Andrew reports an alleged masked intruder attack.
November 26, 2001: James Pavatt and Brenda Andrew vanish with Andrew's two young children, initiating a nationwide and cross-border manhunt.
February 28, 2002: Pavatt and Brenda Andrew are apprehended by law enforcement near the U.S.–Mexico border in south Texas.
2003–2004: Both defendants are convicted of first-degree capital murder in separate trials in Oklahoma City and sentenced to death.
October 2026: The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board narrowly denies Pavatt's clemency petition in a 2–3 vote.
November 12, 2026: James Pavatt is executed by lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester; pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. Central time.
