THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702070608
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: JARRATT LENGTH: 53 lines
Michael Carl George was executed Thursday night for killing a 15-year-old boy who was handcuffed to a tree, sexually tortured and shot through the head.
George was put to death by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center for the June 1990 slaying of Alexander Eugene Sztanko. The inmate was pronounced dead at 9:18 p.m., a prison official said.
George made no final statement but told prison Warden David Garraghty that he gave a written statement to his minister, who read a Psalm to the inmate while he waited on the gurney. However, the minister left the prison without releasing the statement.
George's mother, father and three brothers were his last visitors.
Among the witnesses to the execution was Del. David G. Brickley, D-Prince William. The Sztanko boy was killed in Brickley's district.
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 to deny a stay of execution for George. Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted to stay the execution.
George, 39, abducted the boy as he rode a motorcycle along a dirt power line trail in Woodbridge. After handcuffing the teen-ager to a tree, George sexually assaulted him, tortured him with a stun gun, then shot him with a 9mm handgun.
In an appeal petition and stay request filed last week with the Supreme Court, attorney Stephen Northrup argued it was improper for the prosecutor to comment about the crime's impact on the victim's parents before the jury had issued a verdict.
Northrup said Wednesday that George had written a letter to the boy's parents that will be delivered by a clergyman. He did not know the content of the letter or when it would be delivered.
Although no clemency request was filed, Gov. George Allen said Thursday he had reviewed the court rulings and would not stop the execution.
``As a father, I am particularly aware of, and sensitive to, the profound pain and loss suffered by the parents of the victim, taken from them at such a young age and in such a brutal manner,'' the governor said.
Before the Sztanko slaying, George pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and abduction in the May 1979 disappearance of 8-year-old Larry Perry, who lived near the same power line where the Sztanko boy was killed.
George originally was charged with murdering the Perry boy, but authorities agreed to the manslaughter plea because the victim's body was never found. George served two years of a five-year sentence before being released in 1986 on mandatory parole.
George's execution was the first in Virginia this year. In 1996, the state executed eight men - more than any other state in the country.
KEYWORDS: EXECUTION DEATH PENALTY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT