Execution date set for Georgia murderer

ATLANTA — Georgia officials have set a 7 p.m. May 16 execution time for J.W. Ledford, who was sentenced to death in 1992 for the murder of his 73-year-old Murray County neighbor, Dr. Harry Buchanan Johnston Jr.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said the Superior Court of Murray County on Wednesday filed an order setting the seven-day window for Ledford’s execution for noon May 16 through noon May 23.

Carr’s office said a Georgia Supreme Court summary of the facts of the case shows that Ledford, 20 at the time of the crimes, was convicted of the malice murder of Johnston, two counts of armed robbery, one count of burglary and one count of kidnapping Johnston’s wife, Antoinette.

The jury recommended the death sentence on the malice murder conviction, and the trial court sentenced him to death. The trial court also sentenced Ledford to two consecutive life sentences and two 20-year concurrent terms for the remaining offenses.

According to trial testimony, Johnston was “rather feeble.” Evidence showed that on Jan. 31, 1992, Ledford came to the Johnston home, asking to speak to the doctor. Antoinette Johnston had seen her husband drive away in his truck with a passenger she was unable to identify. She told Ledford and he left, but he returned 10 minutes later and asked her to have the doctor come to his home that evening.

Ten minutes later, Ledford came back, forced his way into the Johnston home at knifepoint and threatened to kill Antoinette Johnston, demanding money and guns. She gave him money from her purse, then Ledford pushed her through the house, gathering a shotgun, rifle and two pistols. He forced her onto a bed and bound her wrists with a rope he had. When she heard the door close, she managed to get up from the bed and saw him driving away in her husband’s truck. Because her wrists were loosely tied together, she was able to sever the rope and telephone the sheriff’s office.

Ledford was caught that afternoon, and authorities found Johnston’s body near a small building located on the doctor’s property. The pathologist who performed the autopsy said Johnston’s head had nearly been severed from his body and had a number of knife wounds. There were no defensive wounds on the victim’s hands.

The day after his arrest, Ledford made a statement to investigators, saying he had gone to the doctor’s home to get a ride to a store. Johnston, he said, accused him of stealing, then hit him and unsnapped a knife pouch on his belt. Ledford said he pulled his own knife and attacked Johnston, then went to the house, where he stole the money and guns.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Ledford’s latest appeal on April 3. He’s being held at the Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison.

This would be Georgia’s first execution this year. There have been 68 men and one woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, with 46 of those inmates put to death by lethal injection. In December, there were 58 men on death row in Georgia.