Stacey Humphreys’ execution date has been reset for September 16 after a Georgia judge heard his final appeal.
Humphreys, 53, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at approximately 7 p.m. At the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, marking the end of a 23-year wait for justice in a case that horrified Cobb County. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles had originally set his execution for December 2025, but legal conflicts of interest within the board forced that postponement.
At Thursday’s appeal hearing, defense attorney Jill Benton mounted a last-ditch effort to secure a new trial by attacking the integrity of Humphreys’ 2007 conviction. Benton accused a juror from that trial of extreme misconduct, arguing that she hid bias and harassed other jurors during deliberations.
Prosecutor Sabrina Graham fired back at the defense claims, dismissing them as character assassination launched nearly two decades too late. “The fact that they didn’t get this evidence and bring this claim when they could have, that’s on them,” Graham said. “It’s not on the court to come back and clean up something that could have happened over 15 years ago.”
The judge in Thursday’s hearing promised a swift decision on the appeal, leaving Humphreys’ fate hanging in the balance for the moment.
State officials have already released details of Humphreys’ last meal request, a sprawling menu of barbecue beef brisket, pork ribs, a bacon double cheeseburger, French fries, coleslaw, cornbread, buffalo wings, a meat lover’s pan pizza and vanilla ice cream. He plans to wash it all down with two lemon-lime sodas.
Humphreys earned his death sentence for the 2003 murders of Cynthia Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, two real estate workers he cornered at their company’s sales office in Cobb County, just outside Atlanta. The cold-blooded killer forced the women to strip naked and surrender their bank PIN numbers before shooting them both execution-style.
Humphreys also tied Williams’ own underwear around her neck so tightly that it “bore a prominent ligature mark” when her body was found by authorities, according to the Georgia Office of the Attorney General. He then drained thousands of dollars from their bank accounts.
His capture came only after a high-speed chase through Wisconsin, prosecutors said. When finally apprehended, Humphreys claimed he did not remember killing the women, but admitted he fled because he knew he “did it.”
“I know it just as well as I know my own name,” Humphreys said, according to the AG’s office.
Humphreys remains the only person scheduled to be executed in Georgia this year, with no other death warrants currently active in the state.
PAGES: