Sean Murphy is the Capitol correspondent in Oklahoma City for The Associated Press, the oldest, largest and most reputable newsgathering organization in the world. He covers the governor and the Oklahoma Legislature, political campaigns and general government. Murphy graduated in 1995 from the University of Oklahoma with a journalism degree in news communication and launched his career at the Duncan Banner in southwest Oklahoma covering police, courts and general news. He started covering Oklahoma politics and government in 1998 for Capitol Network News during Republican Gov. Frank Keating's second term. Murphy went to work for the Norman Transcript in 2001 and later for the newspaper's parent company, Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc., as its Capitol bureau reporter. He joined The Associated Press in 2004 and was named Capitol correspondent at the start of the 2010 legislative session. Murphy lives in Oklahoma City and is an unapologetic University of Oklahoma Sooners fan.
Sean Murphy has witnessed nearly two dozen executions as a media witness working as a journalist with the Associated Press. When I met with him at the Oklahoma State Capitol on January 11, 2023, in order to interview him about his experiences as a media witness, he was preparing to make yet another trip to McAlester, OK the next morning in order to witness the execution of Scott Eizember on January 12.
Click on the link below to read the article that he wrote about what he witnessed during the Jan. 12th execution of Scott Eizember:
Click on the above link to the KFOR News 4 video recorded on October 28, 2021 immediately after the Oklahoma execution of John Grant to see Sean Murphy describe what he witnessed during this execution. Grant's execution was deemed botched by many observers. Read further about the botched execution of John Grant, including the observations of Sean Murphy, in the piece below written by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC):