Court denies Oklahoma Death Row inmate’s request for evidentiary hearing

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has denied a request for an evidentiary hearing from Daniel Vasquez, the death row inmate convicted of killing a pregnant woman in 2018.

Vasquez was sentenced to death in 2021 after a McClain County jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder — one for 23-year-old Shaliyah Toombs and another for her unborn son.

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Toombs, who was seven months pregnant, had been reported missing to Oklahoma City Police after she stopped communicating with her mother. Before her disappearance, she sent a text message indicating she feared for her life.

Authorities say Vasquez and two accomplices killed Toombs before leaving her body in an abandoned pickup truck along Interstate 35 in McClain County. On May 2, 2018, Vasquez ran out of gas, abandoned the truck, and walked two miles to a truck stop near Exit 104. There, he found a police officer and confessed to the crime.

On Thursday, the court denied Vasquez’s request for an evidentiary hearing, ruling that his death sentences were lawfully imposed. In its opinion, the court wrote:

Our review of the record, in this case, demonstrates the death sentences on Counts 1 and 2 were not the result of trial error or improper evidence or witness testimony and that the death sentences were not imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor.

The court also upheld the jury’s findings that Vasquez posed a continuing threat to society and knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person.

Vasquez’s accomplices, Joshua Finkbeiner and Stacy Harjo, fled the state after the murder but were later extradited back to Oklahoma, where they were tried and convicted.