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| Ga. Executes Inmate for 1980 Deaths |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 11/25/2002 |
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A man who shot a couple to death in front of four children at an interstate rest stop 22 years ago was executed by injection last week. William Putman, 59, had told his attorneys to drop his final appeals last Tuesday. The Pardons and Paroles Board considered and denied him clemency, even though he didn't seek it, said spokeswoman Heather Hedrick. Putman was pronounced dead at 7:24 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson. Witnesses in Putman's trial said he approached a family sleeping at a rest area off Interstate 75 on July 10, 1980, in south Georgia. David and Katie Hardin, their three children and a niece were traveling home to Kentucky from a Florida vacation. Putman shot David Hardin and demanded that Katie Hardin leave with him, witnesses testified. She refused, and was shot in the head as she screamed for her dying husband. Putman also was serving a life sentence for killing a teacher, William Hodges, at a Valdosta truck stop the day before the rest stop murders. The Hardins' youngest daughter, Shannon Blincoe - who was 8 months old when the shootings took place - witnessed the execution. Prosecutor Bob Ellis said she told him, 'My mamma and daddy can finally rest in peace.' No members of Putman's family attended the execution, Georgia's eighth since the state Supreme Court ordered it to switch from electrocution to injection last year. |
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