In 2002, on a cold Feb 22 morning in Oklahoma, Sarath Babu Pulluru, a student from Andhra Pradesh, was doing night shift at a cash counter of a 24/7 provision store when 19-year-old Michael Dewayne Smith came up to him and emptied nine bullets into him from two handguns he was carrying.
Pulluru
died on the spot.
On Thursday, Smith was executed after his conviction for the
murder
of Pulluru and that of a woman, Jannet Miller-Moore, at her house.
Smith said Pulluru kept asking him “What did I do?” as he shot him. During the course of the investigation, when police asked Smith why he shot him so many times, he replied, “He would not die.” Smith also told the court that he shot Pulluru in retaliation against comments that someone from the A-Z Mart, where Pulluru worked, had made in the media about a gang member to whom he was close to, and who had been shot dead in a neighbouring store where they had gone for robbery. “I wanted to let Sarath Pulluru know why I shot him. It was to avenge the killing of my friend in the neighbouring store,” he told the court.
It turned out that Smith mistook Pulluru for another convenience store clerk who had made comments to a local newspaper about his criminal gang. Police said Pulluru had no connection with that ‘neighbouring store’. He did not make any statement to media either. On the day of the crime, he was filling in for his owner at the cash counter as the latter had taken the day off.
Smith was a member of a local gang in Oklahoma city. Described by prosecutors as ‘ruthless’, he used handguns to kill both his victims. Moore was killed while Smith was looking for her son who he thought was a police informer.
During a
clemency
hearing last month, Smith expressed his “deepest sorrows” to the victims’ families, but denied he was responsible. “I didn’t commit these crimes. I didn’t kill these people,” he said. “I was high on drugs. I don’t even remember getting arrested.”
Oklahoma attorney general Gentner Drummond in his statement said Pulluru “was an inspiration to his family” as the first member to come to US for education. “Janet and Pulluru were murdered simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time; that was all. I am grateful that justice has been served,” he said.
In a statement, the Pulluru family said, “Sharath was the life of our family. We are a very close family and his sudden death in such a violent manner has affected our family’s lives every day since. He will forever live in our hearts. We are thankful justice was served today.” Pulluru’s brother Harish works as a doctor in Nebraska.
