Marion Wilson and Robert Butts were executed by the State of Georgia for a murder committed during a robbery
According to court documents Marion Wilson and Robert Butts would murder Donovan Parks during a robbery
Marion Wilson and Robert Butts would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Butts would be executed on May 4 2018 by lethal injection
Marion Wilson would be executed on June 20 2019 by lethal injection. Wilson was the 1500th execution in the US since 1977
Marion Wilson Photos
Marion Wilson FAQ
When Was Marion Wilson Executed
Marion Wilson was executed on June 20 2019
When Was Robert Butts Executed
Robert Butts was executed on May 4 2018
Marion Wilson Case
After exhausting all legal appeals, convicted killer Marion Murdock Wilson Jr., 42, died by lethal injection Thursday night at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
He was pronounced dead at 9:52 p.m. by prison warden Benjamin Ford. He accepted a final prayer and recorded a final statement.
“My family and supporters, I love y’all forever,” he said. “Death can’t stop it.”
He denied on the gurney having ever taken a life.
“I’m about to be free. I appreciate everybody,” he said. “I ain’t got to worry about no chain gain.”
Wilson and Robert Earl Butts Jr. were convicted of murder and both sentenced to death in the March 1996 killing of 24-year-old Donovan Corey Parks near Milledgeville.
Butts was executed in May 2018.
Wilson was convicted in fall 1997 of hijacking a motor vehicle, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and possession of a sawed-off shotgun and was placed on death row.
On March 28, 1996, Parks, an off-duty corrections officer, went to Walmart in Milledgeville to get some cat food before returning home from a Wednesday night church service.
He never made it home.
Instead, he was lured from the store and then had his vehicle hijacked by Wilson and Robert Butts, before he was taken by gunpoint onto a county road and killed by a fatal blast to the back of the head from a sawed-off shotgun.
Juries in separate trials found sufficient evidence to sentence both men to death because Parks was killed during the commission of an aggravated felony and armed robbery.
The Supreme Court of Georgia denied a stay of execution for Wilson Thursday afternoon in a 7-1 decision. In addition to denying the motion, the state Supreme Court denied his request to appeala ruling by the Butts County Superior Court, in which his attorneys argued that Butts fired the fatal shot, and also denied his request to appeal a ruling by the Baldwin County Superior Court, which denied his requests for a stay, for DNA testing, and for a new trial.
Hours later, the U.S. Supreme Court also denied a last-minute request by Wilson’s attorneys to block the execution.
Witnesses to the lethal injection Thursday included Freddie Parks of Milledgeville, father of Donovan Corey Parks; brother Chris Parks and his wife Christine, of Powder Springs. Two other relatives of the Parks family were also present.
Also witnessing were Baldwin County Sheriff Bill Massee; Capt. Brad King, Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department; GBI special agent Todd Crosby; Bobby Langford, retired Baldwin County detective; Russell Blenk, former Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office detective; and Randy Ellis, retired Baldwin County detective.
Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Stephen A. Bradley also attended.
Wilson is the second prisoner executed in Georgia this year and the 51st person to die by lethal injection since Georgia chose that method for its state executions. There have been 73 men and one woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976
