Kelly Gissendaner
USAKelly Gissendaner: A Tragic Life and a Deadly Crime
Kelly Gissendaner was born into a poor family who worked on a cotton farm. From an early age, her relationships with men were marked by horrifying experiences. According to her own account and the testimonies of several friends and family members, Kelly's stepfather began to assault her when she was just ten years old. He spent six months sleeping next to her, claiming that his new bed was uncomfortable, and "bad things" happened to the young girl almost every night. After that, a neighbor of her stepfather violated Kelly. When she was twelve, she spent a summer at her grandmother's house, where her uncle also sexually assaulted her for three consecutive summers. In her last year of high school, Kelly was raped by a man who "drank and did drugs." Nine months later, shortly after receiving her high school diploma, she gave birth to her first son.
In 1987, at the age of 19, Kelly married for the first time. However, the marriage ended just six months later. She remarried on September 2, 1989, to Doug Gissendaner. They became pregnant, but lost their jobs and moved in with Kelly's mother. Doug then joined the army and was stationed in Germany. They divorced in 1993, but remarried two years later. They had another child together, but the reunion did not last. Kelly filed for legal separation, which proved to be challenging. She started dating Gregory Bruce Owen and convinced him to get rid of her husband in order to collect a $10,000 insurance payout. To avoid the death penalty, Owen made a deal with the prosecution in exchange for a life sentence. He told the jury that Kelly first discussed her plan to get rid of her husband with him three months before Doug's murder on February 7, 1997. The accomplices went to Kelly's home in Auburn, where Gregory waited in the dark armed with a hunting knife and club, while Kelly went out to drink with her friends. Doug returned home from work around 10:30 PM, and Gregory approached him from behind, holding a knife to his throat. The assailant ordered Doug to get back into the car, and they drove to a wooded area. Throughout the journey, the men did not exchange a single word. Only when they reached the depths of the forest did the doomed Doug ask why this was happening to him. Gregory instructed him to keep moving. He removed Doug's watch and wedding ring, as instructed by Kelly, who wanted to stage the crime as a robbery. When Gregory had finished with his victim, Kelly joined him. The lovers set fire to the car and returned home. Foresters discovered the burned vehicle on February 9, 1997, but Doug's body was not found until eleven days later. The investigation began, and Kelly maintained that she had no problems with her husband, but her affair with Gregory quickly unraveled. She claimed that on the day of her husband's murder, she mistakenly took a sleeping pill, woke up in the morning, and discovered that her husband was not there.
The criminal lovers were arrested two days after Doug's funeral. When the district attorney announced his intention to seek the death penalty against the suspects, Gregory immediately started talking. He received a life sentence with the possibility of parole in 2023. Kelly awaited her execution in death row since 2008.
Kelly's last meal consisted of 4200 calories, including cornbread, pacha (a traditional Russian dish), two Whoppers from Burger King, two large orders of French fries, cherry-vanilla ice cream, popcorn, and lemonade. She also ordered a salad with boiled eggs, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, carrots, cheese, and buttermilk dressing.
The clemency petition for Gissendaner spanned 54 pages. The children of the slain father also want her to be spared.
The lethal injection was administered on February 25, 2015. This was the first time in 70 years that a woman in Georgia had been sentenced to death.
