Willie James Pye lay strapped to a gurney in the death chamber. No one in the witness room spoke. No one moved.
The 54th execution carried out by lethal injection in Georgia began shortly before 11 p.m. at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, which houses the state’s male death row inmates.
Witnesses were taken by vans to the small building on the prison campus that houses the state’s death chamber. Each group was led single-file by a prison officer up a short cement ramp, the base flanked by two members of the prison’s tactical team in full riot gear. They cradled assault rifles. The face shields on their helmets were lowered.
The outside darkness gave directly into the full light of the execution witness room. By the time media witnesses crossed the threshold, the warden had pulled back the curtains over tall windows. The condemned man, strapped in place, was in full view.
The gurney was positioned to face the witnesses and tilted so Pye’s head was elevated, his feet lowered. His arms were splayed out on either side and each was hooked up to intravenous lines. A sheet covered most of his body.
Pye, 59, who had been on Georgia’s death row for nearly three decades, accepted a prayer from a prison chaplain but declined to speak from the death chamber.
Pye was convicted in the 1993 kidnapping, rape and murder of his former girlfriend, Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. She was found shot to death on a rural road in Spalding County. Court records say Yarbrough had recently had a baby Pye believed was his, and Pye was upset that the new man in her life was listed as the father on the birth certificate.
After Warden Shawn Emmons read Pye’s death warrant, he and the chaplain exited the death chamber. Then a fatal dose of pentobarbital began flowing into Pye’s veins.
The execution took five, maybe 10 minutes. Witnesses were not allowed to wear watches or bring in cellphones. The clock on the wall was visible to the officials in the death chamber but not to those on the back row of the gallery.
Multiple groups of witnesses were present. Their identities were not immediately available and prison officials kept the groups sequestered, except for the few minutes everyone had to squeeze into the witness room. There was no opportunity for small talk.
Witnesses had one thing in common: somber, grave looks on their faces.
The groups had been driven across the sprawling prison grounds, past a basketball court and neatly trimmed grass that would have resembled a public park if not for the massive fences topped with concertina wire that glowed in the reflection of the prison’s security lights.
The execution was officially scheduled for 7 p.m. During the hours of waiting, press witnesses were situated in a staff kitchen.
When the time came, Pye briefly glanced up at the ceiling, then shut his eyes and didn’t open them again. For a moment, he began to snore.
His cheeks puffed with air few times as he took his final breaths. His head shuttered slightly at one point, briefly. He tilted his head to one side, and after a little bit, to the other.
After a few moments, Pye stopped moving. The warden reappeared with two men in white coats with stethoscopes. They evaluated Pye, then nodded slightly to each other.
The warden announced the time of death as 11:03 p.m., and a Department of Corrections officer in a light blue shirt closed the curtain.
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