 "Alabama executes man who gave up appeals and admitted guilt in 2010 rape, murder")
An Alabama man who gave up his appeals and said he deserved to die for a 2010 rape and murder was executed on Thursday evening.
James Osgood, 55, was given a lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:35 pm at a prison in southern Alabama, officials said.
He was convicted in 2014 for killing Tracy Lynn Brown in Chilton County after he and his girlfriend assaulted her. Prosecutors said he cut her throat.
In his final words, Osgood apologised for the crime.
“I hadn’t said her name since that day,” Osgood said, adding he wasn’t sure if he should say the victim’s name. “Today will be the first time I said it. Tracy, I apologise.” As the execution got underway, Osgood looked toward family members seated in a witness room and cried quietly as he lost consciousness.
The curtains opened to the witness room at 6:09 pm. It was unclear what time the injection began. His breathing became deep and laboured and his head fell back on the gurney at about 6:15 pm. His breathing was no longer visible by about 6:18 pm and several minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
Osgood recently told The Associated Press that he had dropped his appeals last year, adding, “I am guilty of murder.” In a letter to his lawyer explaining his decision to seek execution as soon as possible, he wrote that he was tired and no longer felt he was “even existing.” “I’m a firm believer in — like I said in court — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I took a life, so mine was forfeited. I don’t believe in sitting here and wasting everybody’s time and everybody’s money,” Osgood told AP last week.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsBrown, 44, was found dead in her home on October 23, 2010, after her employer became concerned when she did not show up for work.
Prosecutors said Osgood admitted to police that he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted Brown after discussing how they had shared fantasies about kidnapping and torturing someone.
The pair forced their victim to perform sex acts at gunpoint. They said Osgood then killed Brown by cutting her throat. His girlfriend, who was Brown’s cousin, was sentenced to life in prison.
The jury found Osgood guilty after about 40 minutes of deliberation and unanimously recommended the death sentence.
Osgood last week said he wanted to apologise to Brown’s family but didn’t expect her relatives to forgive him. “I regret taking her from them. I regret cutting her life short,” he said.
His initial death sentence was thrown out by an appeals court ruling that jurors were given improper instructions. At his resentencing in 2018, Osgood asked to be executed, saying he didn’t want the families to endure another hearing.
In handing down the death penalty at resentencing, the judge noted Osgood had a difficult childhood that included sexual abuse, abandonment and a suicide attempt. But the judge also said it was Osgood who cut Brown’s neck and stabbed her as she begged for her life.
The Death Penalty Information Center reported last year that 165 of the 1,650 people executed since 1977 had asked to be put to death. A moratorium on the death penalty ended that year, and the centre said the overwhelming majority of the execution volunteers since had histories of mental illness, substance abuse or suicidal ideation.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement calling the killing “premeditated, gruesome and disturbing.” She added, “I pray that her loved ones can feel some sense of closure today.” Alison Mollman, who represented Osgood for the last decade, said in a statement that Osgood — called “Taz” by his friends — was “more than his worst actions.” “He made mistakes, terrible ones that he regretted until his dying day, but he didn’t make excuses for his actions. He was accountable and he was sincere,” said Mollman, legal director for the ACLU of Alabama.
The execution was the second in Alabama this year and the 14th in the nation overall.
On February 6, Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute Demetrius Frazier, 52, for his conviction in the 1991 rape and killing of a 41-year-old woman. Alabama in 2024 became the first state to conduct nitrogen gas executions, putting three people to death by that method last year. It involves replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas through a respirator mask, causing death by lack of oxygen.
Condemned prisoners in Alabama can choose execution by injection, the electric chair or nitrogen gas.
With inputs from AP
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