Bio

Danny Keith Hooks was born in 1958 and grew up on a farm near Holdenville, Oklahoma. He had a criminal history predating the 1992 murders: in 1988, he was convicted in California of rape, kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon, and was released from prison there in 1991. By the early 1990s, he was a transient with relatives living in Oklahoma, and was a known drug user.

Murder Story

On May 16, 1992, five women — Sandra Thompson, 35; Phyllis Adams, 47; LaShawn Evans, 30; Carolyn Watson, 37; and Fransill Roberts, 34 — were found bound, gagged, and stabbed to death inside a house in Oklahoma City known to be used for drug activity. Toxicology testing on the victims found evidence of cocaine use. Prosecutors later theorized that the killer had forced the women to strip and had intended to compel them into a group sexual encounter, killing them when one or more attempted to flee.

Despite an extensive investigation, the case went unsolved for years. Hooks had been mentioned in passing during the original investigation but was never treated as a suspect. The case broke open in 1997, when California authorities contacted Oklahoma investigators to report that a DNA sample taken from Hooks in California matched biological evidence recovered from the 1992 crime scene — specifically, blood found on two shirts and a jacket left at the house. Investigators subsequently matched a bloody palm print found at the scene, on a living room curtain, to a print taken from Hooks during an unrelated drunk-driving arrest in Oklahoma. Hooks was arrested in California on February 4, 1997, and extradited to Oklahoma.

At trial, Hooks testified that he had smoked crack cocaine and had consensual sex with two of the victims earlier on the day of the murders, and claimed that he had simply stumbled upon the crime scene afterward, attributing a cut on his own body to an accident while riding a bicycle. The jury rejected this account. In September 1998, Hooks, then 40, was convicted on five counts of first-degree murder. During the sentencing phase, his mother tearfully asked the jury to spare his life, saying she would never believe he was responsible. After the jury reported being deadlocked 11–1, the trial judge instructed jurors to continue deliberating; they subsequently returned a unanimous recommendation of death for all five murders. Hooks was formally sentenced to death on October 26, 1998.

In May 2010, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit voted 2–1 to overturn all five death sentences, ruling that statements made by prosecutors Robert Macy and Brad Miller, combined with the trial judge's instruction to the deadlocked jury, had improperly coerced jurors into returning death verdicts. Rather than pursue a new sentencing trial, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater decided not to seek the death penalty again, citing the substantial time that had passed since the murders. In May 2014, more than 20 years after the killings, Danny Keith Hooks was formally resentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.