DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 8:43 p.m. March 10, 2009
Georgia man executed for murdering woman in ‘86
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
JACKSON, Ga. — A Georgia man was executed Tuesday for stabbing a woman neighbor to death after she spurned his sexual advances.
Robert Newland, 65, was put to death by lethal injection at the state prison at Jackson and was pronounced dead at 7:35 p.m. He was the first person executed in Georgia this year.
Allen Sullivan/aesullivan@ajc.com
Ron Chandonia (from left), Jim Scott, Peggy Hendrix and Lynn Hopkins take part in a vigil at the State Capitol in Atlanta on Tuesday to protest Newland’s execution.
Georgia Dept. of Corrections / AP
Robert Newland, seen in an undated handout photo released by the Georgia Departmen. of Corrections, was convicted in 1987.
The injection was administered at 7:20 p.m.
Newland was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to death for the slaying of Carol Sanders Beatty, a 27-year-old former state and national amateur diving champion.
Authorities say Newland went to the woman’s duplex on St. Simons Island in May 1986 after a drinking binge and tried to kiss her. They say he drew a knife and stabbed her repeatedly after she refused his advances.
She would die hours later, shortly after identifying Newland as the killer to police.
The Georgia Supreme Court denied a motion 6-1 Tuesday by Newland’s attorney to stay the execution on grounds the punishment was disproportionate and arbitrary. It also denied his application to appeal. The lone justice to dissent was Justice Robert Benham, who did not elaborate.
The Georgia pardons board denied a separate appeal Monday to commute the sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court, Newland’s last option for reprieve, denied a stay about an hour before the execution.
Newland went to Beatty’s duplex on May 30, 1986, after a drinking binge and tried to kiss her, authorities said. When she refused his advances, scratching and slapping him, he drew a knife and slashed her neck and stabbed her repeatedly.
Police found Beatty lying in her garden and rushed her to the hospital. A doctor noticed she was moving her lips to try to say something, but couldn’t pronounce the words.
He summoned a detective, who asked her if she was saying “Bob.” She nodded her head. When asked the last name of her assailant, the detective ticked through the alphabet. When he reached “N” she “nodded her head vigorously,” and squeezed his hand, court documents say.
She ended up spelling out “N-E-W-L-A” and when the detective asked if the last name was Newland, she nodded again and squeezed his hand. She died hours later.
Newland, meanwhile, ran to the home he shared with a girlfriend, where he washed himself off with a hose and tried hiding in a small attic space, authorities said. He was soon apprehended.
He told police after his arrest he “grabbed her and I threw her down and somehow the knife came in my hand and started stabbing her.”
“I was drunk, I don’t know why I did it,” he told authorities. “I had no reason for it.”
A jury found Newland guilty of murder and aggravated assault with intent to rape in August 1987 and recommended he be sentenced to death. Several rounds of state and federal appeals have since upheld the conviction and sentence.
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