ATLANTA (NewsNation) — A Georgia man convicted of killing his former girlfriend in 1993 is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night 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 shooting death of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. The planned lethal injection of the sedative pentobarbital was scheduled to take place after 7 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson.
Pye’s attorneys argued that their client was intellectually disabled, suffering from frontal lobe brain damage that was potentially caused by fetal alcohol syndrome. The syndrome can harm planning ability and impulse control, and defendants who are intellectually disabled are ineligible for execution. The Georgia Parole Board rejected the defense arguments Tuesday, denying the clemency request.
Pye’s lawyers additionally called his 1996 trial “a shocking relic of the past” and said the local public defender system had severe shortcomings at the time
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 had said previously.
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, according to the prosecutors.
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.
Yarbrough’s body was found Nov. 17, 1993, a few hours after she was killed. Pye, Adams and the teenager were quickly arrested. Pye and Adams denied knowing anything about Yarbrough’s death, but the teenager confessed and implicated the other two.
The teenager reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and was the main witness at Pye’s trial. A jury in June 1996 found Pye guilty of murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, rape and burglary, and sentenced him to death.
Pye’s lawyers had argued in court filings that prosecutors relied heavily on the teenager’s testimony but that he later gave inconsistent statements. Such statements, as well as Pye’s testimony during trial, indicate Yarbrough left the home willingly and went to the motel to trade sex for drugs, the lawyers said in court filings.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
