News Release
02/27/2009
W.A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General
Execution Date Set for Shane Coffman's Killer
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals today set May 5, 2009, as the execution date for Cleveland County death row inmate Donald Gilson. Attorney General Drew Edmondson asked the court to set the execution date after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Gilson’s final appeal on Feb. 23.
Gilson was convicted and sentenced to be executed for the 1995 beating death of his girlfriend’s son, eight-year-old Shane Coffman. Coffman’s body was found in a freezer behind Gilson’s trailer in Newalla on Feb. 9, 1996. Investigators believe Coffman died sometime around Aug. 17, 1995. A medical examiner’s report revealed Coffman suffered acute fractures to his left jaw and right cheek in addition to a cracked upper incisor and fractures of the left collarbone, several ribs, a shoulder, a leg and his spine.
Gilson would be the second inmate executed in Oklahoma this year.