Georgia's 'stocking strangler', Alabama man set to be executed

[March 15, 2018]  By David Beasley

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Georgia is set on Thursday to execute a man dubbed the "stocking strangler" for a series of murders in which he choked victims with panty hose, while Alabama plans its first execution since it botched a lethal injection a few weeks ago.

Lawyers for both men have launched last-minute appeals. If the executions go ahead, they would be the fifth and sixth this year in the United States, where 1,469 inmates have been put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Georgia plans to execute Carlton Gary, 67, at 7 p.m. at its death chamber in Jackson for the murders of Florence Scheible, Martha Thurmond and Kathleen Woodruff in Columbus in 1977 and 1978. He was also linked to the murder of four other women in a two-year crime spree, police said.

But Gary's lawyers say evidence uncovered since his conviction raises serious doubts about the prosecution’s case against him.

“Mr. Gary is not the Columbus Stocking Strangler,” his lawyers wrote in their March 9 appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The killings stopped in 1978 but Gary was not arrested until 1984 when he was linked to a gun stolen in one of the victim's homes. Prosecutors said they had a confession from Gary and fingerprint evidence that implicated him in the crimes.

DNA testing of body fluids from crime scenes was not available at the time and subsequent testing clears Gary, his lawyers said, adding his confession was coerced and shoe print evidence that could have helped Gary's defense was withheld.

In Alabama, Michael Eggers, 50, is set to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. at the state prison for the 2000 kidnapping and murder of Bennie Francis Murray.

Death row inmate Carlton Gary in Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia, U.S., is seen in this Georgia Department of Corrections photo obtained on March 14, 2018. Georgia Department of Corrections/Handout via REUTERS 

Eggers had sought to waive his appeals and be executed but public defenders have stepped in on his behalf, arguing in an appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court that he is severely mentally ill and was incompetent to make that decision.

Alabama's death chamber protocols have come under a federal court review after it aborted its attempt on Feb. 22 to execute Doyle Hamm, 61, a convicted murderer with terminal cancer and severally compromised veins.

After trying more than 10 times to place a needle, the execution was called off.

(Reporting by David Beasley in Atlanta and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Susan Thomas)

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