April 26 (UPI) — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has scheduled a July execution for convicted murderer Keith Edmund Gavin for murdering courier William Clayton Jr. in 1998.
Gavin’s execution by lethal injection is scheduled between midnight on July 17 and 6 a.m. July 19 at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
The longer time frame to carry out the execution was created because Alabama botched some lethal injections that had to be stopped when they could not be carried out before midnight on the dates they were scheduled.
Gavin will be executed with a three-drug cocktail and not by nitrogen hypoxia. In January, the United Nations Human Rights Commission said the nitrogen method was untested and could subject the people being executed to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or even torture.”
The state Supreme Court used to issue death warrants good only for a 24-hour period. Now the governor sets the timeframe for executions.
William Clayton Jr., was killed in March 1998.
Gavin was sentenced to death when the murder was made capital because it was done in the course of a first-degree robbery.
According to an Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals filing, Clayton was a contract courier who was shot and killed a little after 6:30 p.m. March 6, 1998, while sitting in a Corporate Express Delivery Systems van outside Regions Bank in Centre.
A witness, Larry Twilley, testified that he saw Gavin open the van door and shoot the driver twice. According to this testimony, the shooter pushed the driver to the passenger’s side, got into the van and drove away.
Twilley later identified the shooter as Gavin.
A second witness, Gavin’s cousin Dewayne Meeks, also saw the crime and identified Gavin as the perpetrator, according to the court filing.
Meeks said he drove Gavin to Tennessee from Chicago because Gavin said he wanted to find a woman he had met in February.
Meeks testified that he saw Gavin get out of their car and approach a van in Centre, Ala. He thought Gavin was going to ask the van driver for directions.
Instead, he said, Gavin shot the van driver. Meeks said he watched Gavin fire two shots at the van driver.
Soon after Gavin shot and killed Clayton, Meeks said he fled the scene as Gavin followed in the van, attempting to get Meeks to stop.
Meeks refused to stop because he said he was scared and he returned to Chicago.
Meeks was initially also indicted for capital murder but that charge was later dismissed.
