ATMORE, Ala. — An Alabama inmate scheduled to be put to death Thursday by injection for the shooting death of his friend’s father urged young people to take a pause before making life-altering mistakes.
Alabama is scheduled to execute Casey McWhorter, 49, for the Feb. 18, 1993, death of Edward Lee Williams, 34. Prosecutors said McWhorter, who was three months past his 18th birthday at the time of the killing, conspired with two younger teens, including Williams’ 15-year-old son, to steal money and other items from Williams’ home and then kill him.
“I was a very confused kid,” McWhorter told The Associated Press in a recent telephone interview. “I had some issues going on in my head that I didn’t know how to fix, and the only way I knew to feel acceptance was doing some of the stupid stuff I was doing with the people I was doing it with. I felt like they were family at that point.”
McWhorter acknowledged that he participated in the crime, but said he didn’t go to the house with the intention of killing Williams.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Thursday afternoon McWhorter’s request to halt the execution to consider his appeals related to his age at the time of the crime and other issues.
The AP contacted the state attorney general’s office and a victims advocacy group in an effort to reach the Williams family. The AG’s office said the family had requested privacy.
The jury that convicted McWhorter recommended a death sentence by a vote of 10-2, which a judge, who had the final decision, imposed, according to court records. The younger teens, Williams’ son and Daniel Miner, who was 16 at the time of the crime, were sentenced to life in prison, according to court records.
Prosecutors said McWhorter and Miner went to the Williamses’ home with rifles and fashioned homemade silencers from a pillow and a milk jug. When the older Williams arrived home and discovered the teens, he grabbed the rifle held by Miner, they began to struggle over it and then McWhorter fired the first shot at Williams, according to a summary of the crime in court filings. Williams was shot a total of 11 times, according to court records.
McWhorter said the situation spiraled when Williams came home and surprised the teens during the robbery.
“We were in the house getting some stuff from various rooms when he came in,” he told the AP. “I came out of one of the back rooms and Daniel and Lee (the father) was fighting over the gun Daniel had. … He (Lee) saw me and was swinging in my direction and I just shot … what I thought was somewhere around the leg, which turned out to be somewhere in the abdomen.”
McWhorter maintained to the AP that he did not fire the final shots. But in a 2016 appeal of Miner’s conviction, lawyers for that teen maintained that McWhorter did the shooting. McWhorter said he later tried to kill himself by overdosing. Court records show police arrested him the day after the shooting, after locating him at a hospital.
In their final appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, McWhorter’s attorneys noted his age at the time of the crime and also argued that the state did not give him the required 30-day notice of an execution date. Justices denied the stay request without comment.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 ruled that people cannot be executed for crimes committed under the age of 18. McWhorter’s attorneys argued that Alabama law, however, does not consider a teen to be a full adult until they reach 19 and does not allow 18-year-olds to serve on juries. His lawyers argued it would be unconstitutional to execute someone under the legal age of adulthood in their state.
“There is emerging research showing that there is nothing magic about turning 18 when it comes to brain science - 18 year olds continue to develop and mature,” attorneys for McWhorter wrote.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office urged the high court to let the execution proceed, saying in a court filing that the law is clear that a state may “impose capital punishment on eighteen-year-old offenders.”
The attorney general’s office said the crime was premeditated, and that after the slaying “McWhorter methodically gathered items from the home, including retrieving Williams’s wallet from his dead body, before driving away in Williams’s pick-up truck.”
McWhorter told the AP ahead of the execution that he is “concerned about family and friends and loved ones, how they’re dealing with things.”
He also said he would encourage young people who are going through difficult times to take a moment before making a life-altering mistake like he did.
“Anything that comes across them that just doesn’t sit well at first, take a few seconds to think that through,” he said. “Because one bad choice, one stupid mistake, one dumb decision can alter your life - and those that you care about - forever.”
The state of Texas is also scheduled to carry out an execution Thursday evening. David Renteria, 53, is scheduled to be put to death after being convicted of abducting a 5-year-old girl from an El Paso store in November 2001 and then strangling her.
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