John Hightower was executed by the State of Georgia for a triple murder
According to court documents John Hightower waited for his wife and two stepdaughters to fall asleep before fatally shooting the trio: Dorothy Hightower, and her two daughters, 19 year old Evelyn Reaves and 22 year old Sandra Reaves
John Hightower would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
John Hightower would be executed by lethal injection on June 26 2007
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When Was John Hightower Executed
John Hightower was executed on June 26 2007
John Hightower Case
Triple murderer John Hightower apologized to his victims Tuesday night moments before being injected with deadly chemicals. He said nothing, then after about 15 minutes blinked rapidly for some time. He yawned as his chest heaved and then became motionless.
John Hightower, sentenced to death for killing his wife and stepdaughters, requested a final meal of four fried pork chops, collard greens with boiled okra, fried corn, fried fatback, fried green tomatoes, corn bread, lemonade, one pint of strawberry ice cream and three glazed doughnuts.
He was pronounced dead at 7:59 p.m.
Hightower, 63, was convicted in 1988 of killing his wife and two stepdaughters.
The 7 p.m. execution was delayed until about 7:40 p.m. Officials were about 10 minutes late getting Hightower into the death chamber. It took nurses about 13 minutes to find a vein in each arm to administer the lethal injection. Protocol requires them to establish an entry point in both arms, said Paul Czachowski, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Corrections. The time it took to find veins was not unusual given Hightower’s age, he said.
Hightower was strapped on a gurney in the execution chamber, a small room with white cinderblock walls and rows of wooden benches at the prison 45 minutes southeast of Atlanta. Hightower was in a separate room, but onlookers could see him through a large glass window. He appeared calm while lying on a gurney, a sheet over his body up to his chest, the tube in his arm snaked through a hole in a wall where officials administered a lethal cocktail.
Hightower was first injected with 2 grams of sodium pentathol, a sedative. Then he was injected with 50 milligrams of pavulon, a chemical that paralyzes. Then Hightower was given a dosage of potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
About 30 were on hand in the execution chamber, including Hightower’s pastor, a friend and a paralegal who acted as his witnesses. No witnesses appeared for the victims’ family.
When given the opportunity to speak his final words, Hightower thanked his family and friends — “and last but not least I want to thank my mother who stood by me for so long.” He declined an opportunity for a minister to pray for him.
The Georgia Supreme Court denied a stay of execution Tuesday afternoon.
Hightower spent most of the day visiting with friends, prison officials said. He had requested a final meal of four fried pork chops, collard greens with boiled okra, fried corn, fried fatback, fried green tomatoes, corn bread, lemonade, one pint of strawberry ice cream and three glazed doughnuts.
Dozens of protesters stood outside the prison grounds Tuesday evening. Diane Corlett, a Episcopal minister, drove from North Carolina to protest the execution. “They say it is humane,” said Corlett. “But it is so inhumane. It is Draconian and twisted. I would have liked to see Mr. Hightower get life without the possibility of parole.”
A jury of seven women and five men convicted Hightower in 1988 and sentenced him to die for murdering his wife, Dorothy Hightower, 41, and her two daughters, Evelyn, 19, and Sandra Reaves, 22, in 1987 at the family’s Baldwin County home.
According to authorities, Hightower admitted he had been having marital problems. In the admission, he said he had been drinking and snorting cocaine hours before he entered the home where the victims were, placed a gun under a pillow in the room he shared with his wife and waited for everyone to go to sleep.
At about 3 a.m., police say, Hightower retrieved the gun and shot each of the three victims in the head. A 3-year-old girl in the house, his wife’s niece, was found unharmed.
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