Who Is Tremane Wood? Details of the 2002 Crime That Led to His Death Sentence By Christina Coulter

Tremane Wood was spared the death penalty minutes before his scheduled execution on Thursday, Nov. 13, and he was later found unresponsive in his cell.

PEOPLE previously reported that Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt commuted Wood’s sentence from death to life in prison without parole Thursday just moments before he was to be executed by lethal injection at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Hours afterward, Wood was found unresponsive — a medical event officials determined was brought on by stress and dehydration. He was described as stable and alert later that evening.

Wood had spent more than two decades on death row for the 2002 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a 19-year-old migrant farmworker from a Hutterite community in Montana.

Wipf and fellow farmworker Arnold “Arnie” Kleinsasser were driving from Montana toward Texas for harvest work when they stopped in Oklahoma City and eventually checked into a Ramada Inn on New Year’s Eve, according to the Associated Press and The New York Times.

The men met two women that night — Lanita Bateman and Brandy Warden — who were connected to Wood and his older brother, Zjaiton “Jake” Wood, per KOCO, NonDoc and The Oklahoman.

The outlets reported that the women were posing as sex workers and agreed to have sex with the men for money as part of a plan with the Wood brothers to rob them. The women then accompanied Wipf and Kleinsasser to a motel room before stepping away and contacting the brothers.

Once Wipf and Kleinsasser were in the room, two masked men wearing trench coats and gloves burst in — one with a gun and one with a knife — a sequence described by KOCO and CBS News. During the struggle that followed, Wipf was stabbed in the chest and later died, while Kleinsasser escaped. He told investigators he couldn’t identify either attacker because both men were masked, per the outlets.

Investigators alleged that Tremane and Zjaiton Wood were the masked men, and prosecutors told jurors that Tremane was the one who wielded the knife, according to the outlets.

Wood was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery and sentenced to death, while his brother received a sentence of life in prison without parole, according to the AP and the Times.

Zjaiton later died by suicide in prison in 2019, The Guardian reported.

Wood has long acknowledged taking part in the robbery but insisted he did not stab Wipf, claiming his brother carried out the killing. At his clemency hearing, he told the Pardon and Parole Board, “I’m not a monster. I’m not a killer. I never was, and I never have been,” per the outlet.

Members of Wipf’s family from his Montana Hutterite colony ultimately supported clemency, telling AP and the Times that while they still grieve his death, they did not want Wood executed and believed a life sentence was enough.

Wood is also a father, and outside the prison Thursday his now-adult son told The Guardian he felt “very joyous” after learning his father’s life had been spared. He said it “felt like a thousand pounds has been lifted off my shoulders,” calling the last-minute timing of the decision “mental torture” for both condemned prisoners and their families.

Wood’s attorney, Amanda Bass Castro-Alves, praised the commutation in a statement reported by CBS News, saying she and the rest of his legal team were “profoundly grateful. She added that Stitt’s decision honored “the wishes of Mr. Wipf’s family and the surviving victim” and might offer them “a measure of peace.”

Wood is now expected to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.