James Pavatt

The backstory

Background

Pavatt met Rob and Brenda Andrew through their Oklahoma City church, where he and Brenda Andrew taught Sunday school, according to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.¹ He was a life insurance agent and had helped Rob Andrew set up a life insurance policy worth about $800,000.¹⁴ The court wrote that Pavatt and Brenda Andrew began an affair in 2001. Rob Andrew moved out in late September 2001, and she filed for divorce shortly after.¹ Rob Andrew was 39, an advertising executive and the father of two.⁶⁸

Before the shooting

On the night of Oct. 25–26, 2001, someone cut the brake lines on Rob Andrew’s car; he discovered it before driving.¹ Pavatt’s adult daughter testified that the next morning he persuaded her to call Rob Andrew from a phone that could not be traced and tell him that Brenda Andrew was in a Norman hospital and needed him. An unidentified man made a similar call, and phone records traced the calls to pay phones in Norman and south Oklahoma City, the court wrote.¹⁴ Rob Andrew reported the cut brakes to an Oklahoma City detective and said he suspected Pavatt and Brenda Andrew, according to KOCO.⁹

Rob Andrew asked about removing his wife as beneficiary of the policy. According to the court, Pavatt falsely told him he had no control over it, and when Rob Andrew’s supervisor told him he was still the owner of record, Pavatt became angry and threatened him.¹ The state presented evidence that Pavatt and Brenda Andrew forged Rob Andrew’s signature on a form, backdated to March 2001, changing the policy’s ownership.¹⁴ Pavatt’s daughter testified that he told her Brenda Andrew had asked him to kill her husband.⁴² About a week before the shooting, Pavatt bought a .22-caliber handgun, which was never found, and a witness saw Brenda Andrew target shooting with 16-gauge shells.¹

The shooting

On the evening of Nov. 20, 2001, Rob Andrew came to the family home to pick up his children for a Thanksgiving visit, and neighbors heard gunshots shortly afterward, according to the court.¹ Brenda Andrew called 911 to report that her husband had been shot. Emergency workers found him on the garage floor; he had been shot twice with a shotgun and bled to death.¹ Brenda Andrew had a superficial wound to her arm from a .22-caliber bullet fired at close range. She said two masked, armed men had attacked them, an account the state rejected.¹ The children were in a bedroom watching television with the volume turned up.¹

Police found a spent 16-gauge shell in the garage. Rob Andrew owned a 16-gauge shotgun, but his wife had refused to let him take it when they separated, and it was missing when police searched the home.¹ Pavatt had borrowed his daughter’s car that day. She testified that she later found a .22 bullet on the floorboard, that he told her to throw it away, and that he threatened to kill her if she repeated what he had told her about Brenda Andrew’s request.¹² Police found a 16-gauge shell and .22 bullets of the same brand in the attic of a neighboring house whose owners were away and to which Brenda Andrew had a key.¹

Flight

After the shooting, the court wrote, Pavatt added his daughter to his checking account, had her move his belongings and researched Argentina because it had no extradition agreement with the United States. His daughter testified that he and Brenda Andrew asked her to help prepare a document bearing Rob Andrew’s forged signature that would let the children travel abroad.¹ Brenda Andrew did not attend the funeral. She and Pavatt drove to Mexico with the children, and in late February 2002 they re-entered the United States, out of money, and were arrested.¹¹⁴

The trial

Pavatt and Brenda Andrew were charged together, and their cases were severed for trial.⁴⁵ Pavatt’s trial in Oklahoma County District Court ran from Aug. 25 to Sept. 16, 2003. He did not testify.¹ The state presented a letter, purportedly from Pavatt to one of the Andrew children, that said another man killed Rob Andrew and that Brenda Andrew was not involved; a handwriting expert testified that it was consistent with Pavatt’s writing.¹ The trial court excluded letters from a third party that the defense offered as evidence that someone else was responsible, finding them uncorroborated.¹ The appeals court later described the circumstantial evidence against Pavatt as “an intricate web of proof.”¹ The jury convicted him of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.¹

Why the jury chose death

The state alleged three aggravating circumstances. The jury found two, listed in full below: that the murder was committed for remuneration, and that it was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. It did not find that Pavatt would be a continuing threat to society.¹⁴ The jury found that the aggravators outweighed the mitigating circumstances and recommended death, and on the conspiracy count recommended 10 years and a $5,000 fine. The judge imposed those sentences on Oct. 21, 2003.¹²

The penalty-phase evidence was mainly victim-impact testimony and defense mitigation witnesses who asked the jury to spare his life, the Court of Criminal Appeals wrote.¹ His stepfather told the jurors, “if there’s any mercy in your heart please show it on my son.”¹ Rob Andrew’s father and brothers gave victim-impact testimony.⁴ The opinions reviewed do not describe the rest of the mitigation case in detail. Pavatt later argued that the mitigation presentation was “meager,” the product of a “last-minute and superficial investigation.”⁴

The direct appeal

On May 8, 2007, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and death sentence.¹ It held that the evidence supported the “heinous, atrocious, or cruel” aggravator, citing the two shotgun wounds, the medical examiner’s testimony that death was not instantaneous, the fact that Rob Andrew was found clutching a bag of cans, and Brenda Andrew’s 911 calls spanning several minutes.¹ On the remuneration aggravator, it rejected Pavatt’s arguments that insurance money had to be the primary motive and that, as Brenda Andrew’s paramour, he could not benefit, writing that “a rational juror could easily have found that the murder was committed with the hope of remuneration.”¹ In its mandatory review, the court found that the sentence was not imposed under passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor.¹ Judge Chapel agreed with the murder conviction and death sentence but would have dismissed the conspiracy conviction on double jeopardy grounds.¹ The U.S. Supreme Court declined review in February 2008, and the Court of Criminal Appeals denied postconviction applications in 2008 and 2010.⁴

Federal habeas

A federal district court denied habeas relief in 2014.⁴ On June 9, 2017, a Tenth Circuit panel unanimously upheld the convictions but, by a 2–1 vote, reversed on the death sentence, holding that the “heinous, atrocious, or cruel” aggravator could not constitutionally be applied in the case. Judge Briscoe dissented from that part.² The full court granted the state’s request for rehearing in 2018.³

On June 27, 2019, the en banc court vacated the panel decision and upheld the denial of relief on both the convictions and the sentence, by a 10–3 vote.⁴¹⁴ Writing for the majority, Judge Briscoe held that Pavatt’s Eighth Amendment challenge to the aggravator was procedurally barred because it had not been fairly presented to the state courts. On his sufficiency claim, the court relied on the medical examiner’s testimony that “it was possible that Rob Andrew remained conscious for several minutes after sustaining the wounds,” and on Brenda Andrew’s 911 statements that her husband was “still conscious and attempting to talk to her.”⁴ It also held that his claims that his lawyer failed to investigate and present mitigation were procedurally barred.⁴ Judge Hartz, joined by Judges Kelly and Lucero, dissented, arguing that the aggravator as the state court now applies it gives killers who cause instantly fatal wounds a “sharpshooter bonus.”⁴ The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case in January 2020.⁵

The co-defendant

Brenda Andrew was tried separately, convicted and sentenced to death in 2004.⁴⁵¹² In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a Tenth Circuit ruling against her and sent her case back to decide whether evidence about her sexual history and her conduct as a wife and mother was so unduly prejudicial that it made her trial fundamentally unfair.¹⁵⁵ On remand, the Tenth Circuit again upheld the denial of habeas relief, and on Aug. 14, 2026, the full court declined to rehear the case over a dissent by Judge Richard Federico.⁵¹⁶ On Sept. 25, 2026, her lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision and filed a new application in the Court of Criminal Appeals.⁵ Her death sentence remains in force.⁵

What Pavatt has said about the killing is disputed. Brenda Andrew’s petition says Pavatt signed a confession that her defense used to argue he alone was responsible.⁵ The attorney general’s office says he wrote a letter confessing his role after the flight to Mexico and has denied responsibility since.⁶ His lawyers say prosecutors at Brenda Andrew’s trial argued she was the shooter.⁹¹⁰

Execution date and clemency

The Court of Criminal Appeals set the execution for Nov. 12, 2026, in an order filed Aug. 27.⁸⁹ Labovitz said, “This case should not be scheduled for execution given the material questions yet to be answered.”⁸ In its Sept. 18 clemency packet, the attorney general’s office described the cut brake lines as a first attempt on Rob Andrew’s life and argued that the murder was especially cruel and committed for money.⁶ Pavatt’s clemency application emphasized his Air Force record and his conduct in prison.¹⁰¹¹ He appeared before the Pardon and Parole Board on Oct. 14, and it voted 3–2 to deny clemency.¹² The sources reviewed do not report what Pavatt said at the hearing.

Personal backstory

Early life

The sources reviewed do not say when or where Pavatt was born or describe his childhood. His stepfather testified for him at the penalty phase in 2003.¹ In his federal appeal, Pavatt argued that a full investigation would have revealed “significant psychological impairments” and a “unique background” that made him “easily influenced by Brenda Andrew”; the courts did not reach that evidence because the claim was procedurally barred.⁴ No diagnosis appears in the opinions reviewed.

Military service

Pavatt served in the Air Force, according to his lawyers.¹¹ Retired Navy Capt. Art Cody, director of the Center for Veteran Criminal Advocacy, told the board that “the Air Force considered him among the absolute best enlisted airmen and noncommissioned officers of his generation.”¹¹ His lawyers say close to 100 veterans, including generals and a former Air Force chief of staff, signed a letter supporting clemency.¹¹ The sources reviewed do not give the dates of his service.

Life before the crime

Pavatt worked as a life insurance agent and taught Sunday school at the church where he met the Andrews, according to the Court of Criminal Appeals.¹ He has an adult daughter, who testified against him at trial.¹

Life on death row

Pavatt has been in custody since his arrest in February 2002.¹ His lawyers say he has been a model prisoner and works as a law clerk.¹⁰ A former Oklahoma Department of Corrections official, Justin Jones, said Pavatt would likely continue to behave well if granted clemency; the department said Jones no longer works there and does not speak for it.¹⁰ Pavatt denies guilt.⁸