Georgia Prepares for Sixth Execution of the Year

ATLANTA, GA -- A man who beat a drinking buddy to death with a stick is set to become Georgia's sixth death-row inmate executed by lethal injection this year.

John Wayne Conner is scheduled for execution by lethal injection at 7 p.m. on Thursday, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

If the execution goes through, it would set a new record for Georgia. The state has never executed more than five people in a year in the 40 years since the death penalty was reinstated.

Five death-row inmates were executed in 2015 and 1987.

There have been 64 men and one woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Conner would be the 43rd put to death by lethal injection.

There are presently 63 men under death sentence in Georgia.

Conner was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of James T. White in Telfair County.

According to testimony, Conner, White and Conner's girlfriend had gone to a party in Eastman. After returning to Conner's house, Conner, then 25, and White, 29, walked to a neighbor's home to ask, unsuccessfully, for a ride to a liquor store.

While walking back to Conner's house, Conner claims, White made a comment about wanting to have sex with Conner's girlfriend. The men fought, and Conner hit White first with a glass bottle then with a stick he found.

After returning home, Conner told his girlfriend he may have killed White, but that they needed to go back and make sure. The girlfriend testified that, when they went back to the scene of the fight, she heard a thud, then Conner returned and told her White was dead.

The couple were arrested the next day in Butts County.

Conner's attorneys will appear before the state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday in an attempt to have his execution halted.

For his last meal, Conner has requested 10 pieces of fried catfish, 10 hushpuppies, two triple deluxe hamburgers with bacon, two pints of vanilla ice cream and one sliced raw onion.