JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – The Mississippi Supreme Court has set an execution date for the man who has been on the state’s death row longer than any other inmate.

According to the court, the execution of Richard Gerald Jordan has been set for June 25, 2025. In October 2024, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously denied

his appeal.

Jordan was sentenced to death in 1976 for the kidnapping and killing of Edwina Marter earlier that year in Harrison County.

Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January 1976, Jordan traveled from Louisiana to Gulfport, Mississippi, where he called Gulf National Bank and asked to speak to a loan officer. After he was told Charles Marter could speak with him, Jordan ended the call, looked up Marter’s home address in a telephone book, went to the house and got in by pretending to work for the electric company.

Records show Jordan kidnapped Edwina Marter, took her to a forest and shot her to death, then later called her husband, falsely said she was safe and demanded $25,000.

Jordan has filed multiple appeals of his death sentence. The one denied in October was filed in December 2022. It argued Jordan was denied due process because he should have had a psychiatric examiner appointed solely for his defense rather than a court-appointed psychiatric examiner who provided findings to both the prosecution and his defense.

Mississippi justices said Jordan’s attorneys had raised the issue in his previous appeals, and that a federal judge ruled having one court-appointed expert did not violate Jordan’s constitutional rights.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.