In the end, Carlton Gary went out without a word.
The 67-year-old man, known as the “Stocking Strangler,” was put to death by lethal injection Thursday night.
Gary was convicted of raping and killing three elderly women in 1977. Two had been strangled with their own stockings; the third had been strangled with a scarf. Prosecutors alleged that Gary was responsible for six other attacks, four of those fatal. They had all been raped and choked, most with stockings.
Gary denied the charges until the end, laying his case out to 11Alive in an exclusive interview hours before his death. (Click here to watch the interview)
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Around 9:30 p.m. – two-and-a-half hours after the 7 p.m. scheduled time of the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court last appeals to stay the lethal injection. The court offered no reasons for its denial.
Gary did not accept a final prayer and did not record a final statement.
Witnesses, including Tim Chitwood of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, were led into the viewing area of the death chamber at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Ga.
About nine family members sat in the front row. Several Columbus police officers, including the department’s chief and one of the detectives responsible for Gary’s arrests, sat in the second row.
Gary was already on a gurney, his eyes closed.
Six corrections officers strapped Gary down in a step-by-step, methodic manner.
Four of them marched out of the room. Two stayed. Nurses entered the room and checked for veins. Two doctors applied needles into Gary’s right arm and left hand.
The warden read the death warrant.
And then, silence.
“When it commenced, he made very little motion,” Chitwood said. “Eventually his chest pumped rapidly. He seemed to…his lipped fluttered and then he seemed to yawn. I never saw him show any other motion except his head might have turned a little to one side.”
Nobody made a sound.
Two doctors came in, placed a stethoscope on Gary’s chest. A warden pronounced him dead.
It was 10:33 p.m.
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A stranglehold on the past: The killings that led to the state’s execution (excerpted from this story)
For residents who lived in the Columbus area in 1977 and 1978, Gary’s execution had to bring back horrific memories.
Evil seemed to have a stranglehold on Wynnton, an affluent neighborhood in Columbus, Ga.
Women over the age of 55 became the target of nine rapes and seven strangulation deaths.
- Sept. 11, 1977 | Gertrude Miller
- Sept. 16, 1977 | Mary "Fern" Willis Jackson, 59
- Sept. 16, 1977 | Jean Dimenstein, 71
- Oct. 21, 1977 | Florence Sheible, 89
- Oct. 25, 1977 | Martha Thurmond, 70
- Dec. 28, 1977 | Kathleen Woodruff, 74
- Feb. 11, 1978 | Ruth Schwob,
- Feb. 12, 1978 | Mildred Borom, 78
- April 20, 1978 | Janet Cofer, 61
According to the United States District Court, Miller was raped and severely beaten. Knotted stockings were found at the scene. She survived the attack and identified Carlton as the man who attacked her in September 1977.
Similarly, Jackson had been beaten, raped and strangled to death with a stocking and a sash from a dressing gown just five days later.
Dimenstein was raped and strangled to death with a stocking in her home the same day as Jackson—her body was covered with sheets and a pillow.
Schieble was legally blind and could walk only with the aid of a walker. Her son and his wife found her lifeless, covered body in October.
Thurmond was found covered by a pillow, blankets and sheets. She had been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled with a stocking.
Woodruff was discovered, partially covered and lying on her bed. She had been raped and strangled with a scarf on Dec. 28, 1977.
Police found Schwob sitting on the edge of her bed with a stocking tied around her neck. While she survived the attack, she never identified Carlton as her assailant.
One day after Schwob was found brutally attacked inside her home, Borom was discovered lying in a hallway of her home. She was on her back, her face covered. She had been strangled with a window blind cord and raped.
Cofer’s body was found in her bed covered with linen, and a pillow over her face. The attacker left a bite mark on her left breast. She too had been raped and strangled with a stocking. Cofer was the only victim who did not reside in Wynnton. However, attended choir practice at the Wynnton Methodist Church the night of her murder.
The parallels in each case made prosecutors believe this was the work of a serial rapist and serial killer.
According to the United States District Court, each of the women lived alone and the intruder sexually assaulted them and left behind pantyhose used for strangling them. All but one of the invasions happened at night.
Dubbed as the "Stocking Strangler" he eluded capture for the next six years.
Known as the “Steakhouse Bandit” for several robberies in South Carolina, Carlton was arrested in 1984, when a pistol that was stolen from a home in the Wynnton area in October 1977 was linked to him. Prints from the crime scenes also connected him to the murders.
“Carlton’s fingerprints were ultimately found to match the latent prints found at four of the crime scenes. Blood evidence and hair samples taken from the crime scenes were inconclusive—they did not establish Carlton as the perpetrator, nor did they exclude Carlton,” according to the United States District Court.
He was convicted and sentenced to death for three of the murders, rapes and burglaries. No one was ever convicted in the other rapes or stranglings that occurred in the same timeframe.
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