A man convicted of killing of an off-duty state prison guard in Milledgeville is to be executed June 20, the state Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday, June 5.
Marion Wilson would be the second person in Georgia put to death by lethal injection this year. He was sentenced to die 22 years ago for killing 25-year-old Donovan Corey Parks on March 28, 1996.
Wilson's co-defendant, Robert Butts, was also convicted of Parks' murder and sentenced to death.He was executed in May 2018.
Prosecutors said Parks had entered a local Wal-Mart to buy some cat food, leaving his car parked out front in the fire lane. Witnesses said they saw Wilson and Butts standing behind Parks in a checkout line and then speaking to him by his car.
One witness said they heard Butts ask Parks for a ride and other witnesses testified they saw Parks drive away from the store with Wilson and Butts inside the car.
Parks was soon found lying face down in a residential street. He had suffered a fatal shotgun blast to the back of his head.
It’s unclear who pulled the trigger, although Wilson initially told law enforcement officers that it was Butts who fired the fatal shot, according to court records.
The federal appeals court in Atlanta last August denied Wilson's attempt to reopen the case. On May 28, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Wilson's appeal.
The first person put death by lethal injection in Georgia this year was Scotty Morrow. His execution was carried out at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson on May 2.
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