Cathy Harmon-Christian, the executive director of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, holds an image of Willie J. Pye outside Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Ga., on Wednesday. Pye was executed that night. Willie James Pye, a Georgia man convicted and sentenced to die for the 1993 abduction, rape and murder of his former girlfriend, was executed Wednesday night at a prison in Jackson, the Georgia Department of Corrections said in a statement.
Pye’s execution was carried out by lethal injection at 11:03 p.m. and is the first in the state since 2020. It took place despite a flurry of last-minute legal challenges and ato spare his life. Pye’s lawyers cited their client’s intellectual disability as a reason the state should reconsider execution. They also said Pye had been poorly represented in the initial trials that resulted in a death sentence.
Nathan Potek, one of Pye’s lawyers, said in an emailed statement that Pye’s initial attorney, the late Johnny B. Mostiler, was “racist and incompetent.” Georgia also insisted on executing Pye despite his “lifelong intellectual disability and the fact that he presents a danger to no one in prison,” Potek wrote.Mostiler, who handled 900 cases a year as the only public defender in Spalding County, Ga.
Wearing ski masks, they kicked open the door of Yarbrough’s home after noticing that only Yarbrough and her baby were there. They then held her at gunpoint. “After determining that there was no money in the house, they took a ring and a necklace from Ms. Yarbrough and abducted her, leaving the infant in the house,” according to court documents.
They next took her to a motel and raped her. After attempting to remove their fingerprints from the scene, they drove her to the side of a road, where Pye ordered her to lie face down and shot her three times. Pye and his accomplices drove away, tossing their masks and gun from the car during the drive.Pye claimed during court hearings that Yarbrough voluntarily came to the motel room that evening to trade sex for cocaine.