Georgia executes oldest death row inmate after 11th hour appeals rejected

A 72-year-old man convicted of murdering a convenience store manager in a 1979 robbery in Atlanta’s suburbs was executed in Georgia early on Wednesday, corrections officials said. Brandon Astor Jones, the oldest inmate on the state’s death row, died by lethal injection at 12:46 a.m. at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. He accepted a final prayer and recorded a final statement, the Georgia Department of Corrections said. Jones’ death was delayed nearly six hours following a flurry of appeals by his attorneys. The U.S. Supreme Court late on Tuesday denied Jones’ request for a stay of execution.

There is a man in the back - hurt bad.

What Brandon Jones told police on his arrest

Jones was the second man executed in the shooting death of Roger Tackett, 35, inside a convenience store in June 1979, according to court testimony. Jones was arrested in the store, along with co-defendant Van Roosevelt Solomon, by a police officer who heard four gunshots, according to a Georgia Supreme Court case synopsis. Solomon, also convicted of murder, was executed in 1985. Jones had spent decades appealing against his death sentence. Jones, who declined to request a last meal, was to be offered instead the standard prison menu of chicken and rice, rutabagas, seasoned turnip greens, dry white beans, cornbread, bread pudding and fruit punch, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

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