Name Douglas Wright Role Murderer | Died September 6, 1996 | |
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Douglas Franklin Wright (March 25, 1940 – September 6, 1996) was the first criminal executed by lethal injection in Oregon.
The crimes
He was sentenced to death on October 11, 1993 for luring three homeless white men to a remote area of Wasco County on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation with a false promise of work, and then killing them. Wright later admitted killing a fourth man, Anthony Nelson, a Makah Indian. If Wright had not quit his appeal process, he would have been tried before a federal court in the Nelson case, because killing a Native American on an Indian reservation is a federal crime, under the Major Crimes Act.
Shortly before his execution, Wright confessed to the abduction and murder of Portland, Oregon 10-year-old Luke Tredway, committed in 1984.