A Georgia man convicted of killing his former girlfriend three decades ago is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday in what would be the state’s first execution in more than four years. Willie James Pye, 59, was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. The planned lethal injection using the sedative pentobarbital is set to happen at 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson, the Associated Press reports. In their request for clemency, Pye’s lawyers called the 1996 trial “a shocking relic of the past” and said the local public defender system had severe shortcomings in the 1990s. “Had defense counsel not abdicated his role, the jurors would have learned that Mr. Pye is intellectually disabled and has an IQ of 68,” they said. Defendants who are intellectually disabled are ineligible for execution. Experts said that Pye meets the criteria, but that the burden of proof in Georgia was too high to reach, his lawyers argued.
The Georgia Parole Board rejected those arguments after a closed-door meeting Tuesday and denied Pye’s bid for clemency. Pye had been in an on-and-off romantic relationship with Yarbrough, but at the time she was killed, she was living with another man. Pye, Chester Adams and a 15-year-old had planned to rob that man and bought a handgun before heading to a party in a nearby town, prosecutors have said. The trio left the party around midnight and went to the house where Yarbrough lived, finding her alone with her baby. They forced their way into the house, stole a ring and necklace from Yarbrough, and forced her to come with them, leaving the baby alone, prosecutors have said. The group drove to a motel, where they raped Yarbrough and then left the motel with her in the car, prosecutors said. They turned onto a dirt road and Pye ordered Yarbrough out of the car, made her lie face down and shot her three times, according to court filings.
Comments