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March 20 (UPI) -- Georgia late Wednesday executed death row inmate Willie James Pye for the brutal 1993 murder of his former girlfriend. Pye, 59, was executed by lethal injection at 11:03 p.m. EDT at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, located about 50 miles southeast of Atlanta, the state's department of corrections said in a statement.
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"Pye did accept a final prayer and did not record a final statement," the department said.
Ahead of his execution, Pye had requested a last meal of two chicken sandwiches, two cheeseburgers, french fries, two bags of plain potato chips and two lemon-lime sodas.
Pye was put to death after the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday rejected a last-minute request for a stay of execution.
The Georgia Parole Board had also denied his attorneys' arguments that Pye should receive clemency because of his intellectual disability.
"Following a meeting to consider clemency for condemned inmate Willie James Pye, and after thoroughly considering all of the facts and circumstances of the case, the State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency," the board said in a statement.
Pye was convicted in 1996 for malice murder, kidnapping armed robbery and other charges in the death of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough.
According to the state, Pye had been in a sporadic relationship with Yarbrough, and at the time of her death, she was living with another man, Charles Puckett.
Pye, along with two co-defendants, planned to rob Puckett, who had come into some money, but as they approached his house, they found only Yarbrough was home.
At gunpoint, Pye kidnapped Yarbrough and took her to a motel room where the three men repeatedly raped her.
Afterward, Pye drove her down a dirt road until they pulled over. He ordered Yarbrough out of the vehicle and to lie face down on the ground. Pye then shot her three times, according to the state.
Pye's attorneys argued in his clemency filing that their client's IQ score of 68 made him eligible for execution.
His attorneys said Pye was at risk for many "cognitive and developmental problems" growing up in extreme poverty with a mother who "drank alcohol."
Pye's supporters accused his trial attorney, Johnny Mostiler, of providing ineffective counsel and failing to present evidence of Pye's mental issues, along with physical and emotional abuse, during the court case.
The execution was the state's first since 2020/
Including Pye, Georgia has executed 75 men and one woman since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. He was also the 54th inmate to be put to death by lethal injection.
Georgia has 36 men and one woman under death sentence in the state.
