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Windel Ray Workman was tried by a jury in Oklahoma and convicted of the first-degree child abuse murder of his live-in girlfriend's two-year-old daughter.

The girl, Amanda Holman, was pronounced dead upon arrival at South Community Hospital in Oklahoma City on the morning of January 10, 1987. The emergency room doctor and nurse who unsuccessfully attempted to revive Amanda observed numerous bruises on the girl's face, chest, back and buttocks, and suspected child abuse.

The police were called to the hospital and spoke with Workman about Amanda's injuries. Workman told them that Amanda had fallen backwards out of bed the night before. He also admitted to spanking the child hard, leaving bruises on her body. He played "pitch" with Amanda, in which he threw the girl up in the air and caught her. Amanda's pediatricians testified, however, that her injuries could not have resulted from these activities alone and she was not a child who bruised easily. According to the medical examiner, Amanda had died from blunt head injury. Her death was a homicide, not a result of accident. Any of Amanda's three serious head injuries could have killed her, and he noted additional injury to the child's abdomen and buttocks. Moreover, because bruising cannot occur post-mortem, the injuries observed must have been inflicted before her death. Had Amanda's injuries been the result of a fall as Workman claimed, such a fall must have been from at least ten feet. The physician in charge of the emergency room at Children's Hospital revised upward the medical examiner's estimate of the height of a fall that could have inflicted similar injuries, concluding that such injuries might result from a fall from a two or three-story building. The doctor from the Children's Hospital also concluded that, on the basis of the autopsy report, photos of Amanda, and discussions with the medical examiner, Amanda had been "most definitely" a victim of child abuse.

Witnesses established that Amanda had been in Workman's care during the time she incurred her injuries. Several employees of the child's daycare testified that they had noticed bruises and other injuries on Amanda in the days preceding her death. Amanda cried when Workman came to pick her up from the center.

January 7, 1987 was the last day that Workman picked Amanda up from daycare. On that day, the girl screamed and cried when she saw Workman at the door. She climbed into the lap of a stranger and wet her pants. Workman's comment about Amanda's behavior was that the child, for some reason, "doesn't like me."

Workman kept Amanda home by himself on January 8th and 9th. He testified that he heard Amanda fall in her room on the 8th and believed that she had hit a dresser. The two-year-old told him that her stomach hurt afterwards. On cross-examination, Workman admitted spanking Amanda on the 8th. According to Workman, on the 9th, Amanda fell again in the bathtub. Workman did not tell the police about this fall in initial interviews because he said he had left her unaccompanied at the time, in contravention to a promise he had made her mother. That evening, Amanda began to vomit. After Amanda could not be resuscitated on the 10th, Workman and the girl's mother took her to the hospital, and she was pronounced dead on arrival. Amanda's pediatricians testified that Amanda's mother had been a concerned parent, bringing Amanda in for treatment of even minor injuries. By contrast, Workman's own witness, his second wife, had seen Workman spank their daughter too hard two or three times, causing the child to wet her pants.

The jury convicted Workman of child abuse murder in the first degree. The jury was instructed that the elements of the crime were (1) "The death of a human being;" (2) "That this human being was under the age of eighteen years;" (3) that "The death occurred as a result of the willful or malicious use of unreasonable force upon the child;" and (4) that these actions had been committed "By the defendant Windel Ray Workman." Jury Instruction No. 6. During the sentencing stage of Workman's trial, the jury found the existence of aggravating circumstances, including that the murder was "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel," and recommended imposition of the death penalty.

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Child killer to die Thursday

by Doug Russell.
McAlester News-Democrat
Wednesday, August 25, 2004

In many ways, Amanda Holman was a typical child. She earned childhood's normal bumps and bruises when she was learning to walk. She cried for her mother when they were apart. When the television commercials for the claymation California Raisins came on, she'd stop what she was doing, watching and dancing until the commercials were over. She had asthma and, no matter how small the problem, her mother would often run her to the emergency room for treatment. For example, there was the time a hamster bit her on the finger, something the emergency room doctor treated with an antibiotic cream and a Snoopy Band Aid.

She was a typical child, and made a child's typical messes, like the handprints she put all over a large mirror in her home. Cleaning away the handprints was hard. By the time her mother got around to it, Amanda had been buried for weeks, dead of injuries suffered while she was being physically abused.

Her mother's boyfriend was convicted of the murder and, Thursday night, is scheduled to die himself; the sixth Oklahoma death row inmate executed in 2004. But Windel Ray Workman has never admitted killing the 2-year-old girl. Instead, he and his attorneys say someone else was responsible for the murder.

"If Windel is executed, the state of Oklahoma will have put to death an innocent man," said Norman attorney Steven M. Presson, who represented Workman on appeal. Presson said Workman often cared for Amanda Holman, but so did several others, including Rebecca Holman and Workman's brother, Tracy Workman. He added that police "zeroed in" on Windel Workman as a suspect and never looked for others who could have been responsible for Amanda Holman's injuries, which a state medical examiner likened to injuries suffered in a car wreck. The state Pardon and Parole Board didn't believe the inmate's claims, and denied clemency to him earlier this month.

Rebecca Holman said she doesn't have time for Workman's accusations. She said she's ready for him to die, but mostly she wants to remember her daughter. "Amanda taught me that trees talk if you will only listen," she said, adding that one day while the two of them were sitting on the porch, Amanda kept looking up into a tree. When Rebecca asked her daughter what she was looking at "She looked at me and smiled. She told me 'the trees are talking.'

"I listened, and for the first time in my life, I heard the wind blowing through the leaves, causing the trees to talk. "When times get rough, I take time out to listen to the trees. I find it a comfort to know that she too may be sitting under a tree in Heaven, listening to the birds and trees she loved while she was here."

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Workman Executed For 1987 Murder; Convicted Killer Maintained Innocence Until End Of Life.
Channel 5 Oklahoma
August 26, 2004

McALESTER, Okla. -- Windel Ray Workman was executed by lethal injection Thursday for the 1987 beating death of his live-in girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter. Workman died at 6:08 p.m. after receiving a fatal cocktail of drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He became the sixth person executed in Oklahoma this year and the 158th in state history.

Workman, 46, was convicted in Oklahoma County and sentenced to die for the Jan. 10, 1987, killing of Amanda Holman, who had bruises on her face, chest, back and buttocks. Workman maintained his innocence and claimed the bruises were caused by Amanda's falls from her bed and in the bathtub. Later, he claimed that either Amanda's mom or grandmother were at fault.

But the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals and the 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Denver denied Workman's last-ditch efforts to save himself Thursday, rejecting his claims of innocence and inadequate trial defense. He did not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board had denied clemency Aug. 5.

Three doctors who treated or examined Amanda, who died of blunt head trauma, said her injuries were consistent with being hit by a fist, a hard object or being slammed into a wall, court records say. Testimony, including Workman's, indicated he had sole custody of the girl during the time her injuries occurred. Court records show he had a history of abusing the child.

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Ex-Officer Recalls Slain Girl

NewsOK.Com
by Carrie Coppernoll.
August 26, 2004

Former Oklahoma City police officer Michael Roach always will remember Amanda Holman. He and his partner investigated her murder and interrogated the man who was convicted of beating the 2-year-old to death in 1987. "I think the reason that it stuck with me over the years is the fact that Amanda had no control over her life," Roach said. "She was an essentially helpless victim."

Windel Ray Workman was convicted of causing the head and body injuries that were responsible for the toddler's death. He is scheduled to be executed tonight at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

Roach's partner, Monte Fairchild, said he clearly remembers interviewing Workman. "He seemed very cold and callous -- not remorseful at all about what had happened," the retired police officer said. "Everything was about taking care of Windel and protecting himself. And there was nothing to indicate he had any emotional feelings about what happened to the baby, to the child."

Workman's case will be the fifth investigation Fairchild has worked on that has ended with an execution. "The shock value is gone," Fairchild said. "The first one, it kind of makes you stop and think. ... This time, what has to be done, has to be done."