Update II: Kelly Gissendar, 47, was put to death early Wednesday at the Georgia Diagnostic Prison in Jackson. Gissendaner became the first female convict executed in Georgia in 70 years.
She died by lethal injection at 12:21 a.m. Wednesday after exhausting all of her appeals at the state and federal levels. The Supreme Court denied Gissendaner’s final appeal at 11:30 p.m. ET.
Gissendaner’s three grown children were offered the option of saying their good-byes to their mother at the prison, but they opted to go before the clemency board on Tuesday to plead for her life instead.
Update I: The U.S. Supreme Court denied a last minute stay of execution for Kelly Gissendaner who is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection. Gissendaner’s execution was planned for 7 p.m. but it was delayed while the Supreme Court heard her case for clemency.
The Supreme court announced its decision to deny the stay at 8:30 p.m. without explanation. If the execution proceeds as planned, Gissendaner will be the first female executed in Georgia in 70 years.
Originally published on Sept. 29, 2015 at 3:39 p.m.
Despite a plea from Pope Francis, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to spare the life of death row inmate Kelly Gissendaner.
The 47-year-old mother-of-3 will die by lethal injection tonight. Her execution is set for 7 p.m. ET.
Gissendaner was convicted of recruiting her boyfriend, Gregory Owen (center) to kill her husband Douglas Gissendaner (right) in 1997.
One of those pleading for clemency was Gissendaner’s 25-year-old daughter Kayla.
Kayla was only 7 when her father was murdered by her mother’s boyfriend, Gregory Owen, pictured center.
“My brothers and I really want my mom to live. She is all that we have left,” Kayla told the clemency board by closed circuit video.
But Douglas Gissendaner’s family members were not so forgiving.
“Kelly planned and executed Doug’s murder. She targeted him and his death was intentional,” the family members wrote in a letter to the parole board.
Kelly Gissendaner was 29 when she dropped off Owen at her Auburn home before going out with friends on Feb. 7, 1997.
Owen kidnapped Doug Gissendaner at knifepoint and forced him to drive to a remote location in Gwinnett County. There he bludgeoned Doug Gissendaner with a police nightstick and stabbed him in the neck and back. Later, Gissendaner helped Owen torch the car and destroy evidence in the crime.
Gissendaner and Owen conspired to kill Doug Gissendaner for his $20,000 insurance policy.
Owen accepted a plea deal of 25 years to life in exchange for testifying against his former lover.
But Kelly Gissendaner refused to accept a plea deal which would have spared her life.
Instead, she decided to take her chances with a jury trial. Gissendaner was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1998.
After tonight there will be no women on Georgia’s death row.
