A man who kidnapped, raped and killed his ex-girlfriend in the United States in 1993 will be executed by lethal injection this Wednesday in the state of Georgia (South).
Willie Pye’s execution, the first in that state in four years, will take place at a Jackson prison after a last-minute appeal for justice was denied Tuesday.
The 59-year-old African-American man was sentenced to death in 1996 for the crime of Alicia Yarbrough, a woman with whom he had an on-again, off-again relationship and who he kidnapped and raped along with two accomplices.
In 2021 the conviction was overturned by an appeals court which held that he did not have a public defence, as his lawyer did not say he had signs of intellectual disability, nor did he mention his childhood amid poverty and abuse. But in 2022 the death penalty was again imposed.
If carried out, it would be the third execution in the United States this year.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 states in the United States and suspended in six others – Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
However, 24 executions were carried out last year, most by lethal injection.
