A clemency board found that Tremane Wood shouldn't be executed. He's still scheduled to die
- - A clemency board found that Tremane Wood shouldn't be executed. He's still scheduled to die
Amanda Lee Myers and Nolan Clay, USA TODAY November 12, 2025 at 2:33 AM
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An Oklahoma inmate convicted of murdering a teenager who belonged to a nonviolent religious sect remains scheduled for execution, despite a parole board's finding that he doesn't deserve to die.
Tremane Wood, 46, is set to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday, Nov. 13, for the 2001 killing of 19-year-old Ronnie Wipf, who was stabbed in the heart during an ambush robbery at an Oklahoma City Ramada Inn. Wood's brother Zjaiton "Jake" Wood confessed to the crime, while Tremane Wood has always maintained his innocence.
Tremane Wood also had a poor defense attorney at trial, his current lawyers argued to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. The board granted clemency to Wood in a 3-2 vote on Nov. 5.
Tremane Wood told the board that the deadly robbery "was never supposed to happen like that" and said he should have done more to stop his brother from killing Wipf.
"I am the one who could have prevented it." Tremane Wood said. "Having the courage to stand up and man up ... that night and say, 'No,' could have prevented all of this from happening. And for not doing that, I'm truly sorry."
Oklahoma death row inmate Tremane Wood testifies during his clemency hearing before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025.
The Oklahoma Attorney General's Office maintains that Wood was the killer and deserves to be executed, writing to the clemency board that he "shows a total lack of remorse for his actions and a continuing disregard for the law."
Although the board recommended clemency for Wood, its members do not have the power to grant it. Only Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt can do that. The matter remains on his desk.
Here's what you about the execution, including where Wood's case stands with Stitt, and more about who Wipf was.
When is Tremane Wood's execution scheduled?
Wood is set to be executed at 10 a.m. CT on Thursday, Nov. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, about 130 miles southeast of Oklahoma City.
It'll be the third execution in the state this year and it's one of two executions scheduled on the same day in the nation. About seven hours after Wood's execution, Florida is set to execute former Marine Bryan Jennings by lethal injection for kidnapping 6-year-old Becky Kunash from her bedroom and then raping and killing her in 1979.
On Friday, South Carolina is set to execute Stephen Bryant by firing squad for murdering a man named Willard Tietjen in 2004 and using his blood to to write "catch me if u can" on the wall.
If all three executions this week move forward, states will have put 44 inmates to death in the U.S. this year, a number that hasn't been seen since 2010.
The prison fence and a guard tower are shown at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester in March 2025.What was Tremane Wood convicted of?
On New Year's Day in 2001, Ronnie Wipf and a friend were at a brewery in Oklahoma City when they began invited two women back to their hotel, according to court records.
The women agreed but it was a setup. The women were actually with two other men, Tremane Wood and his brother Jake, and they had a plan for Wipf and his friend: the women would pretend to be prostitutes and once Wipf and his friend got money to pay them, the Wood brothers would show up and rob them, court records say.
Once back at the hotel, Wipf and his friend agreed to pay the women $210 and went to an ATM. When the young men returned, the Wood brothers barged into the room armed with a knife and a gun, and wearing trench coats and ski masks.
A fight ensued and ended with Wipf on the floor, covered in blood and dying from a stab wound to the heart.
The state maintains that Tremane Wood was the killer and deserves to die. Zjaiton Wood was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he died by suicide in 2019.
Oklahoma death row inmate Tremane Wood is sworn in before providing testimony during his clemency hearing with the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025.Who was Ronnie Wipf?
Ronnie Wipf was born and raised near Chester in northern Montana, where he belonged to a colony of Hutterites, a religious sect of people who believe in nonviolence and describe themselves as living a communal lifestyle, farming, raising livestock and making goods for "sustenance living."
"Emerging as a distinct culture and religious group in the early 16th century, this non-resistant Anabaptist sect endured great persecution and death at the hands of the state and church in medieval Europe," according to hutterites.org. "However, the Hand of God remained on the shoulder of these people, and their descendants survived to battle to this very day."
As was common for young male Hutterites in Wipf's colony, Wipf left home to travel and planned to return within a year or two, according to an archived story in the Great Falls Tribune.
Wipf's dream was to make some money and buy his own semi-truck so he could do commercial trucking for a year before returning to the colony permanently, according to the newspaper, which said Wipf had visited home for Christmas a week before his murder.
"You can't believe it," Wipf's grandfather, a minister named Paul Wipf, told the in 2002. "He was home for Christmas and we had a very enjoyable visit with him and just two days later that tragedy."
The Tribune reported that Wipf's family was visiting his grave every day, no matter how cold the weather, and wept as they told him about their day and how much they missed him.
Wipf's younger sister and father have since both died, and his mother, Barbara Wipf, declined to be interviewed for this story. Barbara Wipf told the Huffington Post earlier this month that Wood wrote her an apology letter last year.
“He wrote me how sorry he is, which I believe, because my religion tells me he wrote the truth,” she said.
While she said that Wood "should feel sorry," she doesn't want him to die: “They should let him live," she said, according to HuffPo.
She told the outlet that she fell into a deep depression after her only son was killed but found a way to cope with the help of medication.
“Sometimes all you can do is get it out of the system,” she said. “You cry and cry and cry. And then, you feel a little better.”
Oklahoma governor considering clemency recommendation
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt had not reached a decision about whether to accept the parole board's recommendation to grant Wood clemency as of Tuesday evening, with less than 48 hours before the execution.
The governor has previously granted clemency only one time, in 2021, to Julius Jones, who was hours away from being executed for the murder of an insurance agent during a 1999 carjacking.
Among the factors Stitt could consider is the fact that Wipf's family doesn't believe in the death penalty and that Wood's brother confessed to being the one who stabbed Wipf. Stitt could also give weight to the state's argument that Wood is an unrepentant menace who has spent his time in prison as a gang member who trafficked in drugs and contraband and orchestrated felony assaults.
"He is not sorry. He has not changed," the state wrote in its arguments against clemency. "It is all about him ... It is clear that the death penalty remains the appropriate sentence for Tremane Wood."
Wood's attorney, Amanda Bass Castro-Alves, argued in her clemency package that his older brother, Zjaiton Wood, "had a long and well-documented history of serious psychiatric illness and sadistic violence perpetrated on others," and was the one who stabbed Wipf.
Castro-Alves said Zjaiton Wood got a good trial attorney, while Tremane Wood got someone who "was admittedly unprepared, overworked, battling a substance addiction, and had no business representing someone facing the death penalty."
She continued to say that "clemency exists for cases like Tremane's" as a failsafe against mistakes "and as a means of restoring balance and delivering justice through mercy."
Tremane Wood also has an appeal pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oklahoma man scheduled for execution despite clemency recommendation
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