A South Georgia district attorney will pursue the death penalty against two men accused of killing three people and leaving one of their bodies in a burning car in 2019, authorities said.
Berrien County District Attorney Dick Perryman has filed a notice saying he will seek the death penalty against 22-year-old Jonathan Vann and 27-year-old Keyante Greene, his office confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Georgia law reserves the death penalty for only the most heinous and brutal of crimes,” Perryman said in a statement. “In this case, we believe the facts and evidence fit the statutory requirements to allow the imposition of the death penalty.”
Vann and Greene each face numerous charges in connection with the deaths of Bobbie Lynn Moore, 22, Wayne Hackle, 27, and Mercedes Maelyn Hackle, 17, the AJC previously reported.
Vann and Greene are both charged with malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, arson, concealing a death, tampering with evidence and aggravated battery.
There are 39 men and one woman on death row in Georgia, and the state has executed 76 people since 1976, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. The most recent execution in the state was that of Donnie Lance, who died by lethal injection Jan. 30, 2020 for the 1997 murders of his ex-wife and her boyfriend.
“The families of the victims in these murders have suffered immeasurably and the current penalty prescribed by law for these defendants includes lethal injection,” Perryman said. “This indictment sets the stage for this case to move to trial before a Berrien County jury. Both men are presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
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