Alabama to execute man for 1997 shooting death of store clerk

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Alabama is preparing to execute a man convicted of killing a woman during a 1997 gas station robbery as the victim's son urged the state to stop the execution and spare the man's life.

Geoffrey Todd West, 50, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas Thursday night at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in south Alabama. West was convicted of capital murder in the 1997 shooting death of Margaret Parrish Berry, 33.

Berry's son in recent weeks has urged Alabama's governor to commute West's sentence to life in prison. He said taking another life will not help his family.

“I forgive him and so does my dad. We don't want him to die,” Will Berry said of West.

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

A jury convicted West of capital murder during a robbery and voted 10-2 to recommend a death sentence — a recommendation accepted by the judge. Etowah County Circuit Judge William Cardwell said at the 1999 sentencing that he found it difficult to order the execution of a young man but said the killing was “intentional, carried out execution-style.”

Will Berry sent a letter to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey urging her to halt the execution and let West serve the rest of his life in prison.

He was 11 when his mother was murdered, and he said prosecutors urged the family to support a death sentence. Now a father and grandfather, Will Berry said time and his faith have given him a different perspective. He said West was a trouble young man with a drug-fueled past who made a terrible decision.

“Vengeance isn’t for the state. It’s for the Lord,” Will Berry told The Associated Press.

Berry on Tuesday joined death penalty opponents at a vigil outside the Alabama Capitol. He delivered a petition to Ivey’s office asking that the execution be halted.

Ivey replied in a Sept. 11 letter to Berry that she appreciated his belief, but she said Alabama law “imposes death as punishment for the most egregious forms of murder.”

“As governor, it is my solemn duty to carry out these laws,” Ivey wrote.

Ivey has commuted one death sentence during her eight years in office. The Republican governor wrote in the letter that she did so only because of questions about the person’s guilt.

West and Will Berry exchanged letters. The two men had asked to be able to meet, but the state denied the request for security reasons. Will Berry does not plan to witness the execution. He said it is frustrating the state will allow him to watch the execution but not to visit with West ahead of time.

West doesn’t deny he killed Margaret Berry. He said at 50 that he struggles to understand what he did at 21. He and his girlfriend were desperate for cash and went to the store where he once worked to rob it.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it and wish that I could take that back,” West told AP.

He said he wants to apologize to Berry's family.

“I’m so very sorry for the hurt that I’ve caused you all. I’m so very sorry for what I’ve taken away from you, and I hope and pray you forgive me,” West said of what he wants to tell Berry’s family.

West will be executed by nitrogen gas. The method involves strapping a gas mask to the face and forcing the inmate to breathe pure nitrogen gas, thus depriving the person of the oxygen needed to stay alive.

After state lawmakers in 2018 authorized nitrogen gas as an execution method, the Alabama Department of Corrections gave death row prisoners a brief window to name their preferred execution method. West was one several dozen inmates in 2018 who picked nitrogen. However, at the time, the state had not developed procedures for using it and it was unclear when that would happen.

Alabama carried out the nation's first nitrogen gas execution in 2024. Nationally, six people have now been executed using nitrogen gas — five in Alabama and one in Louisiana.

Lethal injection remains Alabama's primary execution method.