Imprisoned OKC pharmacist back in custody after moving to medical facility as health fades

Jerome Ersland, a former Oklahoma City pharmacist serving life in prison, is back in custody after being transferred to a medical facility. The 73-year-old inmate was transferred Tuesday, though corrections officials haven't said why.

Ersland's plea for mercy was denied in January — his second rejection in five years — despite claims of declining health. Ersland, according to his lawyer, has suffered a stroke and loss of sight in one eye and had a mass removed from his neck while in prison. Locked in solitary confinement for his own safety, Ersland described his days in a dark cell near death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. "I am seeking commutation because, without one, I will die in prison,” Ersland wrote in his commutation application to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, “my only hope… is for someone out there to have mercy on me.”

In 2009, Ersland shot and killed Antwun Parker during an attempted robbery at Reliable Pharmacy in Southwest Oklahoma City. In a lengthy trial, prosecutors showed surveillance video of Ersland firing at two masked teens, then retrieving another gun and shooting Parker several more times while he lay unconscious. Prosecutors called it murder — not self-defense. Ersland was convicted and sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. He is not eligible for release until 2049.

Parker's accomplice, Jevontai Ingram, then 14, served three years as a youthful offender. Ersland maintains his punishment far outweighs Ingram's, especially under updates in Oklahoma’s Stand Your Ground laws.

The state has shuffled Ersland between prison and medical facilities in recent years, but details of his current condition remain unclear.