and i know how hard that was for him. we talked about it and how hard that was going to be, and that i was glad it was him going and not me because i couldn t have dealt with it. after a los angeles opening, heaven s rain was first released in oklahoma and texas and then across the swechlt it recently came out on dvd. and as if to close another chapter in their live, the trigger man died in prison of natural causes in april. brooks spends much of his time now promoting the movie. often speak at the group screenings. it found its early audience among oklahoma church-goers. you know, brooks, i m not sure people can fully appreciate the power that the grace of god has had in your life in granting forgiveness to the people who an old wound.
but of course that was the core experience of his life. did he know how the system treats victims of crime? oh, yes he did. so he introduced oklahoma s first victims rights act. the jury never hears one word about the family or not considering how brutal that crime was. this person took another individual s life in these cases. the victims rights movement was in its infancy then. he met resistance from judges and prosecutors. there were judges, there were state senators who had championed the rights of the accused. and certainly the accused is entitled to basic rights. and but there s a long tradition of that. it s a relatively new phenomena that we provide some rights to the victims of crimes. and back when when brooks and i first began in the senate,
living room floor. dead? uh-huh. pretty shocking thing. yes. certainly was. like an execution? it didn t take them long to identify their suspects. there had been another home invasion earlier that day in hennessey, oklahoma, just up the road from the douglasses. two men fled the crime in a distinctive banana yellow chevy malibu with primer spots. the victims who were robbed but not physically harmed gave deputies good descriptions of the men and their vehicle. investigators were able to trace the distinctive car to an oil field a few miles up the road from the douglass property. two rough necks working the drilling rig had up and quit that very morning, taken off in a borrowed car. thought they were wanted for parole violations apparently. they weren t. they thought they were. the two were named stephen hatch and glen ake. and they were familiar already to the local police.
and remember. so it was like, i don t know what got in my head, i just have to remove all emotional attachment. the jury needed just two hours to make up its mind. ake was convicted. he was sentenced to 1,000 years for shooting the douglass children, and as for the murder of brooks and leslie s parents we the jury empaneled and squorn by to try the issues in the above entitled cause do upon our oaths having heretofore found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree fix punishment at death. so end of the road for ake and hatch or so lawmen and prosecutors assumed. sheriff stedman escorted ake to mccallister penitentiary and death row. when i took glen burton ake to mccallister, oklahoma, to be processed in by the department of corrections, when we got out
downtown baggs, wyoming. ake got drunk, started slapping ginger around. she d had enough, and at her first opportunity spilled her guts to the barkeep. the bar owner alerted the police. by then ake and hatch had escaped in colorado. jeff coreville was a detective sergeant in colorado back then. our deputies found out that the car was associated with ake and hatch and that they were wanted on a number of different murders in oklahoma and texas. they tried to pursue the car but what we had then was just kind of old pickup trucks for pa terrell vehicles. and of course these guys got away real quick. ake and hatch floored the 280z, lost the lawmen. aware of how dangerous the two were, the searchers scoured the county. our guys gave chase, and the car just got away, disappeared 25 miles north of town. they d given the cops the slip. low on money and freezing in the colorado winter, ake and hatch were as desperate as cornered animals.