Jury at beheading trial to hear final witnesses

NORMAN — Jurors at the trial over a 2014 beheading could begin their deliberations on punishment Wednesday or Thursday.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Alton Alexander Nolen, 33, of Moore. Defense attorneys are asking jurors to find reasons to spare his life.

"It was a terrible thing that happened," defense attorney Mitch Solomon told jurors Tuesday. "The question always was why it happened."

The defense attorney said of a death sentence, "'It will not do anything to make the pain go away."

Jurors will begin hearing from the final witnesses Wednesday morning. Those witnesses will include an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper who was hurt trying to arrest Nolen after a traffic stop in 2010.

Jurors on Tuesday rejected defense claims that Nolen is ineligible for the death penalty because of mental retardation.

Jurors unanimously found Nolen is not mentally retarded, a term still found in Oklahoma law even though it is considered offensive in society.

Testimony about the mental issue — mostly from experts — stretched over a week. Jurors learned from the testimony that Nolen scored 69 on an IQ test given him in 2015. Prosecutors, though, called the result unreliable because of testing errors made by a defense psychologist.

Nolen, a Muslim convert, admitted to police and the FBI that he beheaded one co-worker with a kitchen knife and tried to behead another at a Moore food plant after being suspended on Sept. 25, 2014. He said in his confession that he felt oppressed and took action in service to the will of Allah.

Jurors on Sept. 29 rejected an insanity defense and found him guilty of first-degree murder and five assault offenses.

Jurors already have decided his punishment for the assaults. They chose life terms in prison on three of the assault convictions. They agreed he should serve 55 years in prison and 75 years in prison on the others.