A Gainesville man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her friend 25 years ago is set to become the first inmate executed in Georgia this year.
State Attorney General Chris Carr announced Friday that Scotty Morrow is to be put to death by lethal injection on May 2 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
Morrow was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1999 for the murders Barbara Ann Young and Tonya Rochelle Woods.
Deadly rampage
According to a Georgia Supreme Court summary of the case, Young and Morrow dated for several months in 1994 but she broke up with him because of abusive behavior.
On the day of the murder, Dec. 29, 1994, Morrow argued with Young over the phone then went to her house armed with a handgun. He entered without permission and found Young in the kitchen with two of her friends, Tonya Woods and LaToya Horne. Two of Young’s children, 5-year-old Christopher and 8-month-old Devonte, were also present.
During an argument in the kitchen, Woods told Morrow to leave. He yelled at her and pulled a nine-millimeter pistol from his waistband. Morrow shot Woods in the abdomen and Horne in the arm. The bullet severed Woods’ spinal cord, paralyzing her from the waist down.
Morrow then chased Young through the house. He beat her on the head and face before shooting her point-blank in the head. Young’s 5-year-old son witnessed the shooting, according to the court summary.
After murdering Young, Morrow returned to the kitchen and shot Woods and Horne again, killing Woods.
The medical examiner in the case theorized that Woods was probably still conscious when the fatal shot was fired. Morrow then cut the phone line and fled.
Despite her injuries, Horne managed to get to her feet and run to a neighbor’s home. She and Christopher both identified Morrow as the shooter. After his arrest Morrow admitted he shot the victims because he “wanted [Woods] to shut up.”
Exhausted appeals
In June 1999, a Hall County jury convicted Morrow and sentenced him to death. Twelve years later, a state court judge threw out his death sentence after finding his trial lawyers did a poor job of representing him, reports the AJC. The Georgia Supreme Court later reversed that decision and reinstated Morrow’s death sentence.
The federal appeals court in Atlanta last year rejected Morrow’s appeal. In a concurring opinion, Judge Charles Wilson expressed his uneasiness over findings that Morrow’s attorneys failed to conduct a proper investigation into his life before sentencing. If they had, Wilson said, they would have learned that Morrow was the victim of a series of rapes while he was growing up in the New York area. Such evidence could have been used to possibly mitigate his sentence.
In February, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Morrow’s request to appeal.
