Execution postponed for Georgia man convicted of 2003 murders 

The execution of a Georgia man convicted of murdering two Cobb County women in 2003 has been delayed amid questions of conflicts of interest among the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. In 2007, a jury found Stacey Humphreys, now 52, guilty of the kidnapping, robbery, assault and murder of Cindy Williams and Lori Brown, […]

Stacey Humphreys was scheduled to die Thursday, but the execution has been delayed. Georgia Department of Corrections

The execution of a Georgia man convicted of murdering two Cobb County women in 2003 has been delayed amid questions of conflicts of interest among the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.

In 2007, a jury found Stacey Humphreys, now 52, guilty of the kidnapping, robbery, assault and murder of Cindy Williams and Lori Brown, real estate agents working out of a model home in a new subdivision. Prosecutors said he ordered the women to strip and tell him their PINs before killing them and withdrawing money from their bank accounts.

The trial took place in Glynn County instead of Cobb because of pretrial publicity.

Humphreys’ execution was scheduled for Dec. 17, but on Monday, Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles Chair Joyette Holmes signed an order suspending the execution without setting a new date. Holmes did not give a reason for the suspension in the order.

The current execution warrant expires Dec. 24, so if the stay remains in effect past that date, the state will need to acquire a new warrant.

Holmes’ order came shortly before an emergency hearing before Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney over whether two members of the pardons board should be allowed to participate in a clemency hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday but was also suspended by Holmes.

Board member Kim McCoy was appointed to her position by Gov. Brian Kemp at the beginning of December. Previously, she was director of the victim witness unit for the Cobb County district attorney’s office from 1999 to April 2024, where she helped victims and their families, including the families of Williams and Brown.

McCoy told McBurney she had not discussed her involvement with the Humphreys case with other board members, but she did talk about it with the board’s executive director and legal counsel as well as the office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr. She said in court that those conversations led her to decide to abstain from Tuesday’s scheduled hearing.

McBurney indicated he did see the potential for an appearance of a conflict of interest in McCoy’s participation.

“A lay person who sat through the trial in Glynn County, day after day, seeing Ms. McCoy do the amazing work that a victim advocate does, not with the defendant, but with the families of the victims, then seeing Ms. McCoy in the room for a clemency hearing, that neutral observer would say, how is this the right way to do things? And it doesn’t impute anything to Ms. McCoy, just on the surface, it speaks of conflict,” he said.

Paroles Board Vice Chair Wayne Bennett previously served as sheriff of Glynn County from 1992 to 2012, including during Humphreys’ trial. Bennett told McBurney his department was involved with managing the jury, housing Humphreys and transporting him to and from the courthouse, but he had no personal interaction with the man.

“At that particular time, we were housing in excess of 400 inmates,” he said. “I had very little one-on-one contact with the inmates, especially the inmates that were in a high custody unit.”

Bennett, who was appointed by the governor in 2024, testified that he had never declared a conflict of interest during his tenure and indicated that he did not intend to in Humphreys’ case.

A grant of commutation requires the approval of three of the five members of the board, and Humphreys’ attorneys argued that he should be entitled to a vote from a full board with no conflicts of interest.