Sunday college trainer who had husband murdered so she may very well be with lover WILL be executed, Oklahoma appeals courtroom guidelines
A Sunday school teacher who had her husband murdered so she could be with her lover is set to be executed – despite the Supreme Court saying she should get a new trial.
Brenda Andrew, 62, was found guilty of capital murder for having her husband Robert killed in November 2001.
Her accomplice and lover James Pavatt, 72, confessed to shooting Rob more than a year after he sold him an $800,000 life insurance policy.
The Oklahoma County District Court ruled that she was responsible for the murder in 2004.
Brenda has long fought her conviction, arguing that she was unfairly painted as a sexual deviant and unfit mother.
A 7-2 Supreme Court ruling in Brenda’s favor determined that she was sex-shamed during her trial and ordered an appeals court to reconsider the decision in 2025.
The court wrote: ‘The State spent significant time at trial introducing evidence about Andrew’s sex life and about her failings as a mother and wife, much of which it later conceded was irrelevant.
‘Among other things, the prosecution elicited testimony about Andrew’s sexual partners reaching back two decades; about the outfits she wore to dinner or during grocery runs; about the underwear she packed for vacation; and about how often she had sex in her car.’
Brenda Andrew and James Pavatt seen exiting court in July 2002
Robert Andrew was killed in his home’s garage in November 2001
Brenda Andrew was found guilty of orchestrating her husband’s murder
However the circuit court unanimously upheld her conviction on Tuesday – meaning she will face the death penalty.
Brenda had filed for divorce from Robert, an advertising executive at Jordan Associates, in October 2001.
Robert filed a police report later claiming that Pavatt, a friend and insurance salesman, had slashed his car’s brake lines and tried luring him out to a highway.
He told cops that his wife and Pavatt may be having a ‘relationship.’
In early November 2001 – weeks before he was slain – Robert filed another police report, alleging that the culprits were trying to kill him for a hefty insurance claim.
He handed over a tape of two suspicious phone calls telling him to go to a hospital on November 19, 2001.
He was shot dead in the garage of his Oklahoma home the next day. He was 31.
Brenda is seen above with her lawyer, Greg McCracken, when she was sentenced to death in July 2004
Brenda, seen in a 2024 mugshot, has appealed her conviction since she was found guilty
His estranged wife, 38 at the time, sustained a superficial gunshot wound to her arm and told cops that masked-intruders broke in and gunned them down.
Less than a week later, Brenda and Pavatt fled to Mexico with the Andrew children, Tricity Marie and Parker Bryce, missing Robert’s funeral.
The pair returned to the US after draining their money a few months later and were arrested at the border.
An inmate who was locked up at the Oklahoma County Detention Center with Brenda claimed that she admitted to the crime.
