FORSYTH. Ga. -- The execution date for a death-row inmate convicted for the 1990 murder of his sister-in-law has been set, decades after the grisly crime.
Keith Leroy Tharpe, 59, was sentenced to death in 1991 for the malice murder of Jacquelin Freeman and the kidnapping of his estranged wife.
According to court documents, Thapre repeatedly threatened his wife and her family after she left him. One September morning, as Freeman and Tharpe's wife were on their way to work, the 59-year-old used his car to force his wife's off the road. It was there he got out of the car and, armed with a shotgun, forced Freeman to the back of the vehicle where he shot her twice.
After shooting the 29-year-old and rolling her body into a ditch, he kidnapped and raped his estranged wife.
During the sentencing phase of the trial, a Jones County jury voted unanimously for the death penalty.
After several petitions from Tharpe, the Department of Corrections Commissioner Gregory Dozier finally set the execution date for Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Jackson County Prison
If executed, Tharpe will be the 48th inmate put to death by lethal injection in Georgia.
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