ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening after dropping his appeals, saying he's guilty of raping and murdering a woman in 2010 and he doesn't want to keep "wasting everybody's time" and money.
James Osgood, 55, is set to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. CDT at William Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, joining the approximately one in 10 people on death rows across America who have asked for their own executions.
A jury convicted Osgood of capital murder for the killing of Tracy Lynn Brown in Chilton County. Prosecutors said Osgood cut Brown's throat after he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted her.
In the hours before his scheduled execution, Osgood had a final meal of pizza and received visits from his sister, daughter and friends.
Recently, Osgood told The Associated Press he wanted to apologize to Brown’s family and that he dropped his appeals last year because, “I am guilty of murder.” In a letter to his lawyer explaining his decision to seek an execution date, he wrote that he's tired and no longer feels like he's “even existing.”
"I’m a firm believer in, like I said in court, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I took a life, so mine was forfeited. I don’t believe in sitting here and wasting everybody’s time and everybody’s money,” Osgood told AP.
Brown was found dead in her home on Oct. 23, 2010. Prosecutors said Osgood admitted to police that he and his girlfriend assaulted Brown, forcing her to perform sex acts, after discussing how they had fantasies about kidnapping and torturing someone. Then he cut her throat. His girlfriend, who was Brown’s cousin, was sentenced to life in prison.
“I can’t imagine anyone doing that to someone, even their worst enemy. I don’t know what kind of mind has that kind of thinking,” Jackie Wileman, Brown’s stepmother, told the judge at Osgood’s 2014 sentencing hearing.
Osgood said last week that he regrets all the “pain and suffering” he has caused Brown's family, and his own.
“I would like to say to the victim’s family, I apologize," Osgood said. “I’m not going to ask their forgiveness because I know they can’t give it." Only God can grant forgiveness, he said.
Osgood's initial death sentence was thrown out by an appeals court ruling that jurors were given improper instructions. At resentencing in 2018, Osgood asked to be executed, saying he didn't want the families to endure another hearing.
In handing down the death penalty at resentencing, the judge noted that Osgood had a difficult childhood that included sexual abuse, abandonment and a suicide attempt. But the judge also said it was Osgood who cut Brown’s neck and stabbed her as she begged the couple not to hurt her.
The Death Penalty Information Center reported last year that 165 of the 1,650 people executed since 1977 had asked to be put to death. A moratorium on the death penalty ended that year, and the center said the overwhelming majority of the execution volunteers had histories of mental illness, substance abuse or suicidal ideation.
Thursday's execution, if carried out, was to be the second in Alabama this year.
On Feb. 6, Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute Demetrius Frazier, 52, for his conviction in the 1991 rape and killing of a 41-year-old woman. Alabama in 2024 became the first state to conduct nitrogen gas executions, putting three people to death by that method last year. It involves placing a respirator mask on a person's face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.
For decades, lethal injection was the preferred way to execute death row prisoners in the U.S. But recent problems procuring and administering the drugs have led some states to consider alternative methods. Death row prisoners in Alabama can choose execution by injection, the electric chair or nitrogen gas.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP