Clemency Denied, Execution Stands For Convicted GA Murderer And Rapist

JACKSON, GA — After clemency was denied for a Georgia prisoner accused of raping and killing his girlfriend over 30 years ago, the man is set to be executed Wednesday.

The Georgia Parole Board denied Tuesday clemency for 59-year-old Willie James Pye, making it the first time an execution will be held in Georgia since 2020.

The board said Pye is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. Executions in Georgia are carried by lethal injection.

Pye was convicted of murder in the November 1993 killing of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough, with whom Attorney General Chris Carr previously said Pye was involved in a "sporadic romantic relationship."

He and two of his friends were accused of kidnapping Yarbrough at gunpoint from her Griffin home before taking turns raping her in a motel. After they left the motel, Pye was accused of shooting Yarbrough three times, killing her on a dirt road.

While driving from the scene, Pye was accused of tossing the gloves, masks and pistol from the car - the police later recovered these items and found Yarbrough's body a few hours after she was killed.

"A hair found on one of the masks was consistent with the victim’s hair, and a ballistics expert determined that there was a 90 percent probability that a bullet found in the victim’s body had been fired by the .22," Carr's office said in a news release.

Evidence also included a DNA match to Pye from semen found in Yarbrough's body, Carr said.

A Spalding County grand jury indicted Pye on Feb. 7, 1994 on suspicion of malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, armed robbery, burglary, rape and aggravated sodomy, Carr said.

The jury on June 7, 1997 recommended a death sentence for the malice murder conviction; and, subsequent appeals on Pye's behalf failed in the courts.

During Tuesday's clemency hearing, Pye's attorneys argument for clemency lied in his "intellectual disability and a troubled upbringing," CNN reported.

"Indeed, three of Willie Pye’s jurors are now opposed to his execution, citing factors in the inmate’s background that were not presented by what his clemency petition says was an overworked and ineffective public defender. That petition asked Georgia’s Pardons and Parole Board to grant a stay of execution for 90 days to review Pye’s case and to commute his sentence to life in prison," CNN wrote.

The board said it reviewed Pye's parole case file and his application for clemency before making Tuesday's decision.

"The board maintains a comprehensive file on each death row inmate. The file contains the history of the life of the condemned inmate, including the inmate’s criminal history and the circumstances of the crimes committed resulting in the death sentence. In Georgia, the Parole Board has the sole constitutional authority to grant clemency in a death penalty case," the board said in a news release.

The Georgia Department of Corrections said Pye requested two cheeseburgers, two chicken sandwiches, french fries, two bags of plain potato chips and two lemon-lime sodas for his last meal.

The GDC said 75 men and one woman have been executed in Georgia since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Pye is set to be become the 54th prisoner to be put to death by lethal injection, the GDC said.

Thirty-six men and one woman are currently under death sentence in Georgia, the GDC said.