The family of Doug Gissendaner believed Wednesday morning they were near the end of their years of heartbreak as only hours remained before his former wife would be put to death for his murder 17 years ago.
But just two hours after the Parole Board announced it had rejected Kelly Gissendaner’s plea for clemency, the Department of Corrections told the public that she would not be put to death at 7 that evening as scheduled.
A winter storm threatened, so the first execution of a woman in Georgia since 1945 was moved to 7 p.m. Monday.
DOC said only that the day and time was changed because of “scheduling issues.” Officials did not respond to emails or calls asking why the weather would affect an execution, since a prison is staffed all the time.
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles had spent seven hours Tuesday with those who wanted Gissendaner spared and those who wanted her sentence carried out. It did not explain its decision to turn down her plea.
There are no viable appeals left.
“This has been a long, hard, heartbreaking road for us” Douglas Gissendaner’s parents and two sisters wrote in a statement released Wednesday. “Now that this chapter in this nightmare is over, Doug would want us, and all of the people who loved him, to find peace, to remember all the happy times and (to) cherish memories we have of him. We should all strive every day to be the kind of person he was.”
Douglass Gissendaner died on Feb. 7, 1997, at the hand of his wife’s lover, Gregory Owen.
Kelly and Doug Gissendaner married twice — in 1989 and in 1995 — and had three children, despite constant turmoil in their relationship.
They had bought a house in Auburn in December 1996. But in November 1995, Gissendaner had reunited with Owen after a six-month break-up.
She told Owen her husband had to die because a second divorce would not rid her of him. Owen agreed to do it.
Kelly Gissendaner was with friends while Owen waited at the house for her husband. Owen and Douglas Gissendaner drove to a remote area of Gwinnett County where Owen hit him over the head with a nightstick and repeatedly stabbed the unconscious man with a hunting knife. Kelly Gissendaner drove up as Owen stabbed her husband the final time.
Owen eventually pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison. Gissendaner declined a similar offer, went to trial and was sentenced to die for planning the murder.
“I wish I could truly express how sorry I am for what I did, but there is just no way to capture the depth of my sorrow and regret,” she wrote in a 54-page clemency application. “I will never understand how I let myself fall into such evil. But I have learned first-hand that no one, not even me, is beyond redemption through God’s grace and glory.”
Her application included testaments from religious people as well as prison staff, including a former warden, which is unusual.
The prison employees said Gissendaner’s Christian awakening led her to help distressed inmates, even though her cell was isolated from the others.
“Numerous (correctional) officers and inmates talk about how Kelly has prevented suicides, both my ministering to those considering taking their lives and by alerting officers to those she believes might be in danger,” the clemency application said.
Officer Faye Roberts wrote that Gissendaner helped her when she was a new guard. “If she saw I was forgetting to do something or failed to do something she would tell me, ‘Mrs. Roberts, you might want to do that a different way or talk to a superior officer,’ ” Roberts said, according to the clemency application. “Kelly was always right. She kept me out of a lot of trouble.”
The Gissendaner family’s statement made no reference to their former in-law but instead focused on their loss.
“We cherish the memories we have of him,” the family wrote. “We will never forget the goodness and kindness he brought to this world. We will love him always.”
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