Execution Date Set For Convicted Killer Michael Samra

PELHAM, AL - It has been more than 20 years since the gruesome murders of Randy Duke, his fiancée Dedra Mims Hunt, and her two daughters, 6-year-old Chelisa Nicole Hunt and 7-year-old Chelsea Marie Hunt in Pelham. Michael Samra, one of the men convicted in the killings, is scheduled to die by lethal injection May 16.

The slayings happened on March 22, 1997 after, according to court records, Randy Duke’s sixteen-year-old son Mark Anthony Duke came up with the murder plot because Randy Duke refused to allow his son to use a pickup truck.

Samra and Mark Duke went to the Duke home, along with two other friends, David Collums and Michael Ellison. Those two friends waited outside while Samra and Mark Duke went inside, according to an appeals court ruling.

According to court records, Mark Duke shot and killed his father, while Samra wounded Dedra before Mark Duke shot her to death. Mark Duke slit six-year-old Chelisa’s throat, and Samra slit Chelsea’s throat as Mark Duke held her down.

Mark Duke was also sentenced to death for the killings but is now serving a sentence of life without parole. In 2005 the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the death penalty for Mark Duke because he was 16 at the time of the murders, and ordered he be re-sentenced to life imprisonment. Samra was 19 at the time.

Samra is currently housed on death row at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Jefferson County, and will be executed at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.