Georgia executes Sallie for 1990 murder

State has executed more than any other state this year.

JACKSON — A six-man “strap down” team eased William Sallie onto the gurney in the death chamber at 9:38 p.m. Tuesday. Each kept his hands on the condemned man until both legs, both arms and both shoulders were secured to the bed.

Four nurses then prepared him for IVs.

Sallie, 50, had eaten all of the pizza he’d requested as his last meal. Now he winced as the needles pierced his skin.

Ten minutes later, witnesses filed into the chamber. Some were relatives of the man Sallie killed in 1990. The inmate raised his head, and spoke:

“I am very, very sorry for my crime. I really am sorry,” he said. “Man is going to take my life tonight, but God saved my soul. I’ve prayed about this. I do ask for forgiveness.” Then he asked for a prayer. As the lethal drug pentobarbital flowed into his veins, Sallie’s shoulders twitched four or five times, but his eyes remained closed. Then he was still.

Time of death was 10:05 p.m.

Georgia had just executed its ninth murderer in 2016, more than any other state this year and the most in Georgia since capital punishment was reinstated more than 40 years ago.

It was a quiet end to the life of a man who went on a rampage one night in Bacon County in 1990, destroying the family of which he had been a part for years. Sallie, in the midst of a breakup with his wife, shot his father-inlaw six times, killing him, shot his mother-in-law four times (she survived) and then abducted his wife and her sister, sexually assaulting both of them ove r a period of several hours.

Now that Sallie has been put to death, Georgia has nearly doubled its record for the number of executions carried out in a year since the death penalty was reinstated here in 1973. Georgia executed five people last year and also in 1987.