Prosecutors Re-File Charges Against Man Once Sentenced to Death in 1984 Oklahoma City Killing

A 69-year-old Oklahoma City-area man has been charged again in a murder and rape case that is nearly four decades old, Oklahoma County prosecutors said in the final days of November 2023. John Washington was arrested on a warrant about two weeks ago, after he left Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman.

This is not the first time Washington has faced these accusations. He was previously convicted and sentenced to death for the crimes, but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction because he never received a psychiatric evaluation during his trial. He was later found incompetent to stand trial.

Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna said her office re-filed first-degree murder and rape charges. She said Washington had spent years at the state mental hospital in Vinita before being moved to Norman. "There is not statute of limitations on murder," Behenna said. She explained the decision to arrest him this way: "We feel that he is dangerous enough to the community that we didn't want to leave him out there."

The case goes back to 1984, when police were called to an apartment complex in southeast Oklahoma City. Officers were investigating the killing of a Tinker Airman and the rape of the man's wife. The husband's body was found in a dumpster near the couple's apartment.

Oklahoma City Police Department Public Information Officer David McBride recounted what a witness told investigators at the time. "The man asked for help, the husband apparently took the man for help," McBride said. "The man then killed the husband. Apparently came back, attacked the wife, and raped her."

Washington had been accused of violence before. He was convicted of murder in 1979 and served what the source describes as a short prison sentence. He is now being held at the Oklahoma County Detention Center.

Behenna said her office has sufficient evidence from 1984 to take the case to trial, but she does not expect that to happen. "I assume what's going to happen is his defense team is going to find Mr. Washington is incompetent to proceed and we'll go through the whole thing all over again," she said.

Police have also linked Washington's DNA to a 1982 murder and rape of an Oklahoma City woman. He was never charged in that case because of his mental health status. Behenna said police would need to submit that case to her office before she could consider filing charges.