Commissioner: Gregory C. Dozier

Director of Public Affairs: Joan Heath

Inmate’s Last Meal

Condemned murderer Keith Leroy Tharpe is scheduled for execution by lethal injection at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 26, at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. Tharpe was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of Jacquelin Freeman.

Media witnesses for the execution are: Deborah Lurie-Smith, The Jones County News; Rhonda Cook, Atlanta Journal Constitution; Evan Watson, WGXA; and Kate Brumback, Associated Press.

Tharpe requested a last meal of three spicy chicken breasts, roast beef sandwich with sauce, fish sandwich, tater logs, onion rings, apple pie, and a vanilla milkshake.

There have been 69 men and one woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. If executed, Tharpe will be the 48th inmate put to death by lethal injection. There are presently 56 men under death sentence in Georgia.

The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison is located 45 minutes south of Atlanta off Interstate 75. From Atlanta, take exit 201 (Ga. Hwy. 36), turn left over the bridge and go approximately ¼ mile. The entrance to the prison is on the left. Media covering the execution will be allowed into the prison’s media staging area beginning at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.