Execution date set for Alabama inmate convicted of Chilton County killing

James Osgood – Photo from Alabama Department of Corrections (via AP)

By KIM CHANDLER Associated Press

The State of Alabama has set an execution date for a man who dropped his appeals and asked to be put to death for the 2010 rape and murder of a woman in Chilton County.

55-year-old James Osgood is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on April 24, Gov. Kay Ivey announced.

Osgood was convicted of the 2010 killing of Tracy Lynn Brown. Prosecutors said Osgood cut her throat after he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted her.

Osgood over the summer dropped his appeals and asked the state to set an execution date for him.

He was convicted in 2014 and sentenced to death, but an appeals court threw out the sentence, ruling that a judge gave improper instructions to jurors. But at his resentencing in 2018, Osgood asked for a death sentence, telling the judge he believed in an “eye for an eye.”

Osgood renewed his appeals after his sentencing until dropping them this summer.

Brown was found dead in her home on Oct. 23, 2010, after her employer became concerned when she did not show up for work. She had been stabbed and her throat cut, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that Osgood told police that he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted and attacked Brown after discussing how they had fantasies about kidnapping and torturing someone.

In the 2018 sentencing order handing down the death sentence, a judge noted that Osgood had a difficult childhood that included sexual abuse, abandonment and a suicide attempt. His brain development was potentially hindered because of malnutrition he suffered as an infant, the judge found.

But the judge also said it was Osgood who cut Brown’s neck and stabbed her during the attack in which Brown begged them not to hurt her.

Osgood’s girlfriend, the other person charged in the murder, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

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