Carl Isaacs was executed by the State of Georgia for six murders
According to court documents Carl Isaacs would escape from a prison in Maryland. Along with his brother Billy Isaacs, his half-brother Wayne Coleman and a friend, George Dungee the group decided to go to Florida.
However when they were in Georgia they were running out of gas and money. They decided to rob a home and over the course of a couple of hours would murder Jerry Alday aged 35, Ned Alday aged 62, Jimmy Alday aged 25, Mary Alday aged 26, Chester Alday aged 32 and Aubrey Alday aged 57.
Carl Isaacs would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Carl Isaacs would be executed by lethal injection on May 6 2003, 30 years after the murders occurred
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When Was Carl Isaacs Executed
Carl Isaacs was executed on May 6 2003
Carl Isaacs Case
Six members of a farming family were slaughtered in 1973 in the most gruesome slayings in state history. Thirty years later, the victims relatives got their wish that someone pay with his life for the crime.
Carl Isaacs, 49, was given a lethal injection at the state prison in Jackson Tuesday night for orchestrating the Alday family killings at their southwest Georgia home on May 14, 1973. Appeals kept him on death row longer than anyone else in the nation.
Relatives of the Aldays never wavered in their public push for Isaacs to be executed. The repeated delays angered them; some relatives died waiting for the execution. Three members of the family were witnesses. Its 200 miles from Donalsonville to Jackson, but its taken us 30 years to get here, said Paige Seagraves, a granddaughter of Ned Alday, one of the victims. She described the execution as too humane.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a last-minute stay, although Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer said the court should have agreed to consider Isaacs claim that it was unconstitutional to execute him after his long imprisonment. Justice Clarence Thomas, a native of Georgia, did not participate.
Isaacs was pronounced dead at 8:07 p.m. He had ordered a last meal of pork and macaroni, pinto beans, sauteed cabbage, carrot salad, dinner roll, chocolate cake and fruit punch but refused it, a state Corrections Department spokeswoman said. Isaacs declined an opportunity to make a final statement, but did ask for a final prayer. After the prayer he mouthed Amen. After the prayer, Isaacs scanned the room, looking at witnesses. Then the chemicals started pumping, his cheeks puffed, his breathing fluttered and his eyes began to close, although they never closed completely.
The killings near Donalsonville prompted more residents to buy guns, sparked legislation that requires victims families to be notified of developments in death penalty cases and inspired the 1988 movie Murder One, starring James Wilder as Isaacs. Over the years, Isaacs lawyers argued that publicity prevented him from receiving a fair trial and tried to explain his actions by shedding light on his abusive childhood in Baltimore. A retrial ended in the same verdict and sentence.
In his final days, Isaacs, through his lawyer, offered remorse for the killings, saying he was not the same hotheaded person who committed the crime at 19. The Alday family was unmoved, citing Isaacs own boastful words in a series of 1975 prison interviews. Id like to get out and kill more of them, he said at the time. They represent the type of society I dont like. I didnt know them, had never seen them before May 14, but I didnt like them. Working people dont do a damn thing for me.
Isaacs, during the interviews, compared himself to notorious 1930s outlaw John Dillinger. The Aldays were shot to death as they returned home for lunch. Ned Alday was gunned down along with three sons, a brother and a daughter-in-law, who was raped and then taken to a field where she was shot in the head. Prosecutors called the slayings the most gruesome in the states history.
There were many who thought this wouldnt happen, said Attorney General Thurbert Baker. He described the execution as a final chapter in the case. Isaacs lawyer, Jack Martin, and two ministers also witnessed the execution. We became one with the killer tonight. All of us are less of a person, Martin said.
It was the first time in state history that Georgia officials allowed members of the victims family to witness the execution. At the time of the murders, Isaacs was on the run from authorities after having escaped from a minimum-security prison camp in Wicomico County, Md. Two other men are serving life sentences for the murders. A third was released from prison in 1993.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=8978
