Carlton Gary, dubbed the “stocking strangler,” was executed in Georgia on Thursday and Michael Eggers, who strangled his boss, was executed in Alabama the same night.
Both died by lethal injection, making them the fifth and sixth murderers put to death in the U.S. this year, Sky News reported.
Gary was arrested in 1984 and convicted two years later for raping and choking three elderly women to death on Columbus, Georgia in the 1970s.
Police later linked the 67-year-old to four other murders but, while evidence and a confession fingered him as the killer, lawyers insisted he could have been cleared by testing that was not available at the time.
The Georgia parole board had been reviewing his case for several weeks after lawyers insisted evidence could cast a doubt on Gary’s guilt; however, on Wednesday he was denied clemency.
Gary refused his last meal, did not accept a final prayer or make a final statement, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
Hours prior to his execution, lawyers asked for a stay to allow DNA testing, but the Georgia Supreme Court dismissed the motion and Gary was pronounced dead at 10:33 p.m, Sky News reported.
Eggers was executed at 7:29 p.m on Thursday at a southwest Alabama prison, CBS News reported.
He refused to give any last words but allegedly made a thumbs-up signal to friends and family just before the execution.
His death came nearly two decades after his conviction for strangling his former employer, Bennie Francis Murray.
In 2016 he dropped his appeals following disagreements with his attorneys and requested that his execution quickly be scheduled, a move which his former attorneys tried to fight, insisting that Eggers was suffering from schizophrenia and was delusional when he made the decision.
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