The family of Douglas Gissendaner said Wednesday they would keep pushing to see his wife put to death for murdering him despite a set back when her execution was postponed earlier this week because of a problem with the lethal injection drug.
“Doug is the true victim of this pre-meditated and heinous crime,” his parents and siblings said in a statement released through the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office. “We, along with our friends and supporters and our faith, will continue fighting for Doug until he gets the justice he deserves no matter how long it takes.”
Kelly Gissendaner was scheduled to die at 7 p.m Monday but the execution was stopped about three hours after the appointed time of her death because a pharmacist for the Department of Corrections said the pentobarbital that had been made specifically for her execution was “cloudy.”
That came even after an independent lab had examined the drug and found it was “within the acceptable testing limits.”
The drug was made by a compounding pharmacy, a pharmacy that makes individual dosages of drugs. The identity of that pharmacy is a secret under Georgia law.
On Tuesday, the DOC announced that Gissendaner’s execution, as well as one scheduled for next week, was postponed until the agency could determine what caused the problem with that batch of the powerful sedative.
Gissendaner’s execution warrant expired at noon on Wednesday.
In just a week, she twice came within hours of death when her lethal injection was called off. Initially she was scheduled to die on Feb. 25 but it was rescheduled because a winter storm would make it too dangerous to transport her from the women’s prison in North Georgia to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison 50 miles south of Atlanta, where the death chamber is located. Then it was stopped for a second time on Monday.
Gissendaner was sentenced to die for plotting the 1997 murder of her husband and then persuading lover, Gregory Owen, to carry it out. Owen waited for Douglas Gissendaner at the couple’s home in Auburn while Kelly Gissendaner was at a bar with friends.
Owen forced Douglas Gissendaner to drive to a remote area in Gwinnett County where he knocked the husband unconscious and then repeatedly stabbed him in the neck. Kelly Gissendaner drove up just as Owen stabbed him the final time.
Gissendaner wanted her husband killed because she said that was the only way she could get away from him. The couple had married twice.
Owen pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving 25 years. Gissendaner, however, rejected a similar plea offer, went to trial and was sentenced to die.
The religious community as well as prison guards and former wardens have all advocated for clemency. They spoke of how much she is changed and has become a positive influence in prison.
But the State Board of Pardons and Paroles has twice declined to stop her execution despite the pleas from her supporters. Gissendaner had already exhausted all her appeals.
It is not known when she could be rescheduled.
Next week, Brian Keith Terrell was scheduled to be executed for the 1992 murder of an elderly family friend in Newton County. As with Gissendaner, his execution has been postponed until the Department of Corrections figures out what happened with the batch of pentobarbital it had acquired for Monday’s execution.
Judges in Gwinnett and Walton Counties will have to sign new execution warrants before either can be scheduled to die. The warrants will mandate a seven-day window during which their executions must be completed. The window can open no sooner than 10 days after the warrant is signed and no later than 20 days after it is signed.
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