Georgia Plans To Execute Man Known As ‘Stocking Strangler’
Georgia plans to execute an inmate known as the “stocking strangler,” a man convicted of raping and killing older women in attacks that terrorized a small city decades ago.
Carlton Gary, 67, is scheduled to die by injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital Thursday evening at the state prison in Jackson. He would be the first inmate executed by Georgia this year.
Gary was convicted in 1986 on three counts each of malice murder, rape and burglary for the 1977 deaths of 89-year-old Florence Scheible, 69-year-old Martha Thurmond and 74-year-old Kathleen Woodruff. Though charged only in those deaths, prosecutors say Gary attacked nine elderly women in the west Georgia city of Columbus from September 1977 to April 1978. Most were choked with stockings, and seven of them died.
Police arrested Gary six years after the last killing, in May 1984. He became a suspect when a gun stolen during a 1977 burglary in the upscale neighborhood where all but one of the victims lived was traced to him.
At trial, prosecutors introduced evidence from all nine attacks, arguing that common factors established a pattern. The victims were all older white women who lived alone and were sexually assaulted and choked, usually with stockings. They were attacked at home, usually in the evening, by someone who forced his way inside. All but one of the Georgia victims lived in the Wynnton neighborhood, and all lived near where Gary lived at the time of the crimes.
Prosecutors also presented evidence that they said connected Gary to similar crimes in New York state.
Gary’s lawyers have argued in a clemency petition and filings before state and federal courts that evidence that wasn’t available to his trial attorney, either because the necessary testing didn’t exist yet or because it wasn’t disclosed by the state, proves he’s not the “stocking strangler.”
Perhaps most compelling, they have argued, is that DNA from sperm found on clothing taken from one of the victims’ homes was later found to belong to someone other than Gary. This is especially significant, they contend, because the woman survived the attack and dramatically identified him at trial.
Bodily fluid testing on semen found on Thurmond’s body and on stains on Scheible’s sheets also likely exclude Gary, his lawyers argue, adding that DNA testing that could have confirmed that could not be done because the samples were contaminated at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab.
Additionally, they say, bite mark and fingerprint evidence relied upon by the prosecution was problematic and a shoeprint found at one of the crime scenes doesn’t match with Gary.
Gary’s lawyers have raised these arguments in a clemency application filed with the State Board of Pardons and Paroles and with several courts.
The parole board, the only authority in Georgia with the power to commute a death sentence, on Wednesday declined to spare his life after holding a closed-door hearing to listen to arguments for and against clemency.
Appeals filed by Gary’s attorneys were still pending Thursday morning before the Georgia Supreme Court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state has argued in court filings that the evidence Gary’s lawyers present as new has already been considered by the courts and that his convictions and sentence have repeatedly been upheld by state and federal courts over the past three decades.
Gary filed a handwritten motion Thursday in federal court asking a judge to postpone his execution and appoint a new attorney for him. Gary wrote that he has met with an attorney only once since his motion for new trial was denied in September and hasn’t seen his attorneys since his execution date was set about three weeks ago.
His attorneys haven’t consulted with him on legal strategy and that he “should have had knowledge of and input into all motions and presentations involving him in these matters,” he wrote.
Gary’s attorneys did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment. The state has filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the request.
Top Stories
