An Alabama death row inmate was executed Thursday after being convicted in the 2010 sexual assault and fatal stabbing of 44-year-old mother Tracy Lynn Wilemon in Chilton County.
James Osgood, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m. Thursday after receiving a lethal injection at a south Alabama prison, according to a statement from Gov. Kay Ivey.
Before the execution, Ivey told corrections Commissioner John Hamm she would not exercise her clemency powers and directed him to proceed with the death sentence.
“The murder of Tracy Wilemon was premeditated, gruesome and disturbing, and tonight, the state carried out the death sentence of James Osgood,” Ivey wrote in a statement.
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Osgood was found guilty in 2014 of cutting Wilemon’s throat after he and his girlfriend, Tonya Vandyke, sexually assaulted her in 2010, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Wilemon was reportedly Vandyke’s cousin.
“Both Mr. Osgood and his accomplice, who will never see the light of day, from the moment they were inspired by a Hollywood torture scene, set out to commit this heinous crime against Ms. Wilemon and are now paying the price,” Ivey wrote.
“And let’s be clear: At the end of all of this, Mr. Osgood robbed Ms. Wilemon of her life, something that can never be reversed for her or her family. I pray that her loved ones can feel some sense of closure today.”
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During a phone interview from prison, Osgood told the AP he did not appeal the sentence because he was “guilty of murder.”
“I’m a firm believer in, like I said in court, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” he said. “I took a life, so mine was forfeited. I don’t believe in sitting here and wasting everybody’s time and everybody’s money.”
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Osgood also apologized to the victim’s family, noting he would not ask for forgiveness.
“I’m not going to ask their forgiveness because I know they can’t give it,” he said. “I regret taking her from them. I regret cutting her life short. I regret that I took one of God’s children. And I regret the pain and suffering that I caused, not only for the victim and her family, but to mine.”
The victim’s family supported the death sentence at trial, though it is unclear if any relatives were in attendance at Osgood’s execution, the 14th carried out in the U.S. this year.
A day before Osgood was put to death, a Texas man convicted of killing a young mother and setting her body on fire more than two decades ago was executed by lethal injection.
Moises Sandoval Mendoza, 41, was pronounced dead at the Huntsville state penitentiary after being convicted of the March 2004 death of 20-year-old mother Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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