A convicted killer is back in the custody of the State of Oklahoma to face the death sentence for his role in the kidnapping and murder of a 77-year-old woman.

George John Hanson arrived at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester late Saturday night after being transferred from a federal prison in Louisiana, where he had been serving a life sentence for an unrelated bank robbery. Hanson was convicted and sentenced to the death penalty in the case of Mary Bowles, who was kidnapped from a Tulsa mall in 1999 and then shot to death at an isolated dirt pit near Owasso. Hanson's accomplice then killed Jerald Thurman, who was at the scene and witnessed the crime.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond requested the transfer in January and is expected to ask the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to schedule Hanson for execution later this year.