Georgia has put someone to death for the first time in four years. His name is Willie James Pye.
Alicia Lynn Yarbrough was killed, kidnapped, robbed with a gun, raped, and broken into in 1993, and the 59-year-old man was given the death penalty. He was put to death at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson on Wednesday night by a lethal injection. At 11:03 pm, he was declared dead.
The Georgia Parole Board heard from Pye’s lawyers the day before the execution. They asked the board to delay the man’s death.
They said Pye shouldn’t be executed because he is mentally disabled and feels bad about hurting the family of his victim. The application also said that his lawyer at the hearing “effectively abandoned his post, leaving no one and nothing to stand between his client and death.”
“The jury would have learned that Pye has an IQ of 68 and is intellectually disabled if the defense lawyer hadn’t given up his job.”
“They also would have known that the problems he had from birth, like extreme poverty, neglect, constant violence, and chaos in his family home, made it impossible for him to grow up healthy.”
Lawyers said that Pye’s low IQ was partly caused by his mother abusing booze while she was pregnant with him. Most people have an IQ between 85 and 115.
The man’s lawyers said that this proof was never shown in court and that some of the jurors no longer want him to be put to death. “This is the exact kind of evidence that supports a life sentence,” the application said.
Still, the board turned down the request, which pretty much confirmed that the man would be put to death as planned. In Georgia, the board is the only one who can overturn a death sentence.
In the end, The Superior Court of Spalding County ordered the execution. The board could have changed Pye’s death sentence to life in prison with or without the chance of release, issued a stay, or refused to grant clemency at all.
The Independent asked Pye’s lawyers if they were going to file a writ of appeal with the US Supreme Court but did not hear back. CNN said that there was some kind of lawsuit going on before the man was put to death.
Pye had been on death row for 28 years. In 2020, Donnie Cleveland Lance was the last person to be put to death in Georgia. The state stopped putting people to death because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Two chicken sandwiches, two cheeseburgers, french fries, two bags of plain potato chips, and two lemon-lime sodas were what Pye asked for his last meal.
Court documents say that Pye, Chester Adams, and Anthony Freeman robbed, kidnapped, raped, and killed Yarbrough thirty years ago.
The 21-year-old woman was living with her boyfriend at the time of her death. Her boyfriend was the father of her child. However, she had been dating Pye before.
Even though Pye thought he was the father, her boyfriend signed the birth certificate for her child. According to court papers, this made Pye angry, and when he learned that Yarbrough’s boyfriend had gotten settlement money from a lawsuit, he and his friends made plans to rob him.
The men found Yarbrough by himself when they got to the couple’s house. Pye took the woman hostage by holding a gun to her head. Documents say that the guys then went to a motel and raped her one at a time.
Following that, they put Yarbrough in a car and drove off, stopping along a dirt road. Police say Pye told the woman to get out of the car, laid her down face down, and shot her three times there.
DNA from Pye’s victim’s body was used by prosecutors to link him to the crime.
Adams admitted to being involved in the crimes in April 1997 and was given five straight life sentences. He is still in jail. At the time, Freeman was 15 years old. He admitted to the crimes, took a plea deal, and was Pye’s major witness in court.