Richard Gerald Jordan was born on May 25, 1946, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He was raised by Mr. and Mrs. Homer H. Jordan in the nearby town of Petal. During his childhood and school years, Richard was known to be a good person according to his neighbors.

After finishing high school at Petal High School, he joined the Army. He served for four to five years and was deployed to the Vietnam War. Following his time in the service, Richard returned home. By the mid-1970s, he was married and had three children. After his military discharge, he worked in Louisiana. His wife stayed in Hattiesburg to manage their home.

Richard worked for a year as a manager at a fertilizer plant. He also spent two to three months working at a shipyard in Morgan City, Louisiana. Despite these jobs, by January 1976, he found himself in a difficult financial situation. This led him to come up with a plan to kidnap someone from a wealthy family in order to demand ransom money.

Before carrying out his plan, Richard stopped at a pawn shop in Baton Rouge. There, he traded his 16-gauge shotgun for a .38 caliber pistol. He later told his parents that he was going to take a physical examination for a job on an offshore oil rig.

Richard Gerald Jordan carefully planned the kidnapping of Edwina Marter, the wife of a banking executive. On January 12, 1976, he called the Gulf National Bank to learn the name of the person in charge of commercial loans. He found out that Chuck Marter, Edwina’s husband, handled that. Using a telephone directory, Jordan located the Marter family’s address. He drove to their home while pretending to be an electric company worker.

While Edwina was home with her three-year-old son, and with her husband at work, Jordan kidnapped her. He forced her to drive into the De Soto National Forest, where he fatally shot her. After killing Edwina, Jordan tried to collect a ransom from her husband, claiming she was still alive. He initially demanded $50,000 but later reduced this amount to $25,000.

When Chuck Marter dropped off the cash as instructed, law enforcement officers were right there. Jordan noticed their presence and fled, leading to a chase. He ran his car into a ditch but managed to escape on foot. However, later that day, police found him taking a taxi and arrested him. Once in custody, Jordan admitted to killing Edwina and led police to her body and the murder weapon.

During his arrest and subsequent trials, Jordan’s narrative changed, but his guilt was not seriously disputed. Jordan went through multiple trials and sentencing phases, leading to several appeals regarding his death sentence over the years.