Summary of Offense:
An Oklahoma man was sentenced to death row for killing his best friend. Ronson Kyle Bush was initially offered a different sentence. Prosecutors first offered him life in prison without parole but he refused and was sentenced to death. "My son was a keeper like all my children; big in stature, great heart. He loved to help people," Billy Harrington's mother Kathleen Harrington said. It was a treasured trait his family says lead to his death. They say he was helping Bush who had been staying with Billy Harrington for only a week when he shot and killed him with a handgun. Authorities say bloody footsteps show Harrington was still alive and made his way outside.
That's when Bush tied his best friend's feet and dragged his body around their home with a truck for about 600 yards then left him for dead. Harrington's mother knew something was wrong when Bush answered her son's phone. "I said, 'Where is Billy?' He said at that time he was about 50 feet from him. It was just like he walked to where he was at and said Billy couldn't talk anymore." Bush repeatedly admitted what he did, including when he was booked into the county jail. "I just shot my best friend with a .357 six times," Bush told jailers. "I'm just saying what I did. I shot the motherfu**** six times with a .357." "He's tried to escape from our county jail three times," Grady County District Attorney Bret Burns said. "He's threatened to hurt guards, jailers, anybody who gets in his way. He's upped the ante and walked himself into the death penalty." "We're glad that the judge made the decision he made, at the same time it doesn't bring us any great relief," Harrington's brother Bobby Harrington said. "We still don't have Billy. There's still going to be an empty void that will never be filled." Billy Harrington leaves behind an eleven-year-old daughter.
Bush was sentenced to death on October 30, 2009.
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