Montgomery, Alabama (AP) — Wilbury was 11 years old when his mother was killed. Margaret Parrish Berry, 33, was shot in the back of her head during a robbery at the gas station where she worked.
Jeffrey Todd West He was 21 when he pulled the trigger.
Berry and West exchanged letters ahead of a scheduled run in Alabama with nitrogen gas on Thursday. West expressed his regret and Berry offered forgiveness.
Berry asks Alabama Gov. Kay Ivy to stop the execution, saying he doesn’t want others to die.
“I forgive this guy, and I don’t want him to die,” Berry said in a phone interview. “I don’t want the nation to receive revenge on my name or my family.”
Berry on Tuesday joined the death penalty opponents to file a petition with the governor’s office requesting she stop the execution.
“There should be no more death. It should take healing and progress,” Berry said.
He added that his mother taught him the importance of forgiveness. “Revenge is not for the nation, it is for the Lord,” he said.
Families of murder victims have a variety of views on the death penalty. Many have been sharply criticising the decades that it takes for executions to occur, and the focus of legal and media on the potential suffering of subjects. But some have opposed the death penalty, including other Alabama cases, such as Berry and another state of Alabama. The families of victims of domestic violence who urged the governor to live in prison in 2022 failed.
Margaret Berry, the mother of two sons, was shot on March 28, 1997 while lying on the floor behind the counter at Harold Chevron in Etowa County.
Prosecutors said the store clerk was killed to make sure no witnesses were left. Court records say the $250 was taken from a cookie can that held the store’s money. The ju judge was convicted west of capital murder during the robbery and recommended a death sentence 10-2.
Etowa County Circuit Judge William Cardwell said in his 1999 ruling that it would be difficult to impose a death penalty on a young man, but said the shooting death would “execute a clearly intentional, deliberate, execution style.”
West does not deny that he killed Margaret Berry. He and his girlfriend were craving cash and went to the store he once worked to take it away. He said he struggled to understand what he did at age 50 and 21.
“I don’t regret it and I don’t have a day to hope to get it back,” West said on a phone call from the prison.
He said he would play the day frequently in his head, hoping he would turn himself to and leave.
“I wish I had the opportunity to swap places and leave it to me, not her,” he said.
The prison system rejected the request for an in-person meeting between Berry and West, citing security regulations.
Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen last year. This method involves tying a gas mask to your face, allowing the inmate to breathe pure nitrogen gas and stealing the oxygen needed to stay alive.
In a letter to Ivy, Berry wrote that execution west would “take heavy on me, and it would not bring my mother back.”
In a September 11 letter to Berry, Ivy replied that she appreciated his beliefs, but said Alabama law “imposes death penalty for the worst form of murder.” She added that it is her duty to carry out the law.
Ivy has it One death sentence passed. The Republican governor said he did so only to ask questions about the person’s guilt.
A spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said the West had been on death row for 26 years and his sentence was due. The agency focused on the atrocities of murder.
“She got cash to the west and he executed her,” the statement read.
Berry said his mother’s death has derailed his life in many ways. He believes he has passed him through his wife Courtney and his church.
West said that other young people in desperate situations would want them to know that they have the option to leave.
“If you don’t have anywhere else to go, go to church, find a priest and tell them everything, but don’t do what I did,” he said. “Even if you don’t feel like you have options, you have options.”
