OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — A last-minute application has been filed in an effort to prevent the execution of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Fairchild.

Fairchild is scheduled to be executed Thursday morning. He was sentenced to death in 1993 after he was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son in Oklahoma County.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted against recommending clemency for Fairchild last month.

Fairchild’s attorneys filed the emergency motion with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. His legal team claims that Fairchild suffers from mental illness and is not fit for execution.

“Richard Fairchild’s connection to reality has been tenuous throughout the over 20 years our office has represented him,” said his attorney, Emma Rolls. “Based on conversations with him on November 14, it is clearly the connection is now severed. He believes his brother is torturing him with a voice recording device from outside the prison and that his brother wants him to be executed in order to obtain millions of dollars that Mr. Fairchild believes he has in a bank.”

If the courts fail to intervene, Fairchild will be executed Thursday.

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