Bio 

Terrance Anthony James was born on March 18, 1960. He was also known as Tony James. Before the murder, James was involved in a federal case connected to the theft of weapons from the National Guard Armory in Durant, Oklahoma. He was indicted with Mark Allen Berry and Dennis Earl Brown on federal charges related to theft of government property.

On January 20, 1983, James pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government property. Under the plea agreement, the remaining counts were dropped. He was later sentenced to five years in federal prison on February 15, 1983.

At the time of the murder, James, Berry, and Brown were being held in the Muskogee City/Federal Jail. James and Brown believed that Berry had implicated them in the theft case and blamed him for their arrests. That belief became the motive prosecutors later presented in the murder case.

Murder Story

On February 6, 1983, Mark Allen Berry was killed inside the Muskogee City/Federal Jail in Muskogee County, Oklahoma. Berry was 25 years old. He had been jailed in connection with the same federal theft case involving Terrance Anthony James and Dennis Earl Brown.

Prosecutors alleged that James, Brown, and another inmate, Sammy Van Woudenberg, planned Berry’s murder because they believed Berry was a “snitch.” Van Woudenberg was jailed on separate charges but helped plan the killing.

The murder happened at about 4:30 a.m. while Berry and Brown were playing cards. According to prosecution evidence, James came up behind Berry and wrapped a wire around his neck. Brown held Berry’s feet and covered his mouth while James strangled him. Berry died from strangulation.

After Berry was dead, James, Brown, and Van Woudenberg tried to make the killing look like a suicide. They hung Berry’s body in a jail shower stall using towel strips or similar material. A coroner later determined that Berry had been strangled with a wire before being hanged.

Dennis Earl Brown later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a 35-year prison sentence. He testified against James and Van Woudenberg. James and Van Woudenberg were tried together for first-degree murder and both were sentenced to death.

James continued to challenge his conviction and sentence through appeals. In 1994, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit considered one of his federal challenges related to his earlier theft sentence and rejected relief. Later appeals in the murder case also failed.

On March 23, 2001, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals set James’s execution date for May 22, 2001, after the United States Supreme Court denied his final appeal.

Terrance Anthony James was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, on May 22, 2001. He was pronounced dead at 9:06 p.m. He was 41 years old.