JACKSON, Ga. (Reuters) – A man who stabbed his gay lover to
death with a screwdriver and dismembered the remains was
executed on Tuesday in Georgia after courts rejected his
last-minute appeals.
Robert Dale Conklin, 44, was put to death by lethal
injection at a state prison in Jackson, 50 miles south of
Atlanta. He died at 7:44 p.m. EDT (2344 GMT), Georgia
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Peggy Chapman said.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the execution.
Conklin declined to make a final statement before a
sedative, lung-paralyzing drug and deadly potassium chloride
were injected into his arms. His final meal consisted of filet
mignon, shrimp, asparagus, ice cream, apple pie and iced tea.
The execution occurred just hours after the Georgia Board
of Pardons and Paroles rejected Conklin’s last-minute plea for
clemency. The board did not give a reason for its decision.
Conklin was sentenced to die for killing George Crooks, a
28-year-old lawyer, during an altercation in Conklin’s
apartment in Sandy Springs, Georgia, on March 26, 1984. The two
men were romantically involved.
In a hearing before the pardons board on Monday in Atlanta,
defense lawyers argued that Conklin had acted in self-defense
to prevent Crooks from raping him.
“He is guilty of defending himself from rape and having the
worst possible judgment after his attacker was dead,” defense
lawyer Don Samuel said in a clemency petition.
But prosecutors insisted Conklin, who was on parole for
burglary and armed robbery at the time of the killing,
intentionally killed Crooks and then tried to cover up the
murder.
According to a confession Conklin gave police after his
arrest, he cut up Crooks’ body in a bathroom, wrapped the
remains in garbage bags and discarded them in a dumpster
outside his apartment.
A book on how to gut an animal was found in Conklin’s
bedroom by police, according to testimony at his 1984 trial.
Conklin was the third person put to death in Georgia this
year and the 39th in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Comments