Alabama to execute man for 1997 shooting death of store clerk

Alabama is preparing to execute a man convicted of killing a woman during a 1997 gas station robbery in what will be the nation’s latest execution carried out with nitrogen gas

Alabama is preparing to execute a man convicted of killing a woman during a 1997 gas station robbery in what will be the nation’s latest execution carried out with nitrogen gas.

Geoffrey Todd West, 50, is scheduled to be executed Thursday night at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in south Alabama. West was convicted of capital murder for the 1997 shooting death of Margaret Parrish Berry, 33. Berry’s son is among those who urged Alabama’s governor to commute West’s sentence to life in prison.

It is one of two executions scheduled for Thursday in the United States. Texas plans to carry out a lethal injection on the same evening.

Berry, the mother of two sons, was shot while lying on the floor behind the counter at Harold’s Chevron in Etowah County on March 28, 1997.

Prosecutors said the store clerk was killed to ensure there was no witness left behind. Court records state that $250 was taken from a cookie can that held the store’s money. West’s girlfriend agreed to testify against him in exchange for a 35-year sentence for her role in the robbery and slaying.