An execution date has been set for a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend fifteen years ago in Dahlonega. Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Homer Bryson announced Thursday that Steven Frederick Spears is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Nov. 16 at the state prison in Jackson.
The now 54-year-old Spears was convicted by a Lumpkin County jury in 2007 of the August 2001 murder of Sherri Holland.
His conviction was upheld last year by the Georgia Supreme Court. Court records show Spears killed Holland because he suspected she’d been romantically involved with someone else. He devised several schemes to kill her, ultimately choking her, wrapping her face and mouth with duct tape and then duct-taping a plastic bag over her head.
If the execution goes through as scheduled, Spears will become the eighth inmate executed by Georgia this year and the 45th inmate put to death by lethal injection.
