Admitted murderer Verna Stafford has been denied parole from her life sentence for her role in the 1978 massacre at the Sirloin Stockade steakhouse in Oklahoma City.
Stafford, 73 was involved in nine murders in Oklahoma that year and avoided the death penalty by testifying against her husband.
Gov. Kevin Stitt denied parole on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
"I just want you to know that I'm very sorry for what happened," she had told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board last month.
The board voted 3-2 on Aug. 11 to recommend Stitt grant her parole. The board cannot consider parole for her again for three years.
She would not have gone free if paroled. Instead, she would have begun serving a second life sentence for a 1978 fatal shooting along Interstate 35.
She then would have had to serve 15 more years before being eligible for parole again.
Her former husband, Roger Dale Stafford, was executed in 1995. He was convicted of all nine murders after she testified against him at two trials.
Six employees of the Sirloin Stockade steakhouse were gunned down in a meat locker during a robbery on July 16, 1978. The Staffords got away with $1,290 from an office safe.
Killed were Terri Horst, 15, David Salsman, 15, Anthony Tew, 17, David Lindsey, 17, assistant manager Louis Zacarias, 43, and janitor Isaac Freeman, 56.
Roger Stafford fired first, and his brother joined in, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals noted in its 1983 opinion upholding his conviction for the massacre.
"Verna Stafford testified that she heard a lot of gunfire and screaming," according to the opinion. "Roger Stafford then told Verna that it was time for her to take part. He placed his gun in Verna's hand and helped her pull the trigger."
The three Staffords also were involved in the fatal shooting of a Texas family along I-35 near Purcell on June 22, 1978. The trio had raised the hood of their car to "feign distress," the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals noted in its opinion on that case.
Verna Stafford attempted to flag down cars as Roger and Harold Stafford "lay in wait in the darkness beside the car," according to the opinion.
Killed was Melvin Lorenz, 38, when he stopped to help. Also killed were his wife, Linda Lorenz, 32, and their son, Richard, 12. They were traveling from San Antonio, Texas, to a funeral in North Dakota.
Verna Stafford was sentenced the first time in March 1980 after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree murder. Under her plea deal, she was given an indeterminate term of 10 years to life.
She was resentenced in 1989 to two consecutive life terms after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled indeterminate sentences were improper. Life in prison without the possibility of parole was not a possible punishment in Oklahoma until 1987.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Parole denied for Sirloin Stockade murderer Verna Stafford