ATLANTA — A death row inmate convicted of the 1988 shotgun killing of a preschool teacher whose car ran out of gas was set to die Tuesday evening, and his attorneys attempted last-minute appeals seeking to postpone the execution.
Emmanuel Hammond was scheduled to be put to death by injection at the state prison in Jackson for the death of Julie Love, a 27-year-old physical education teacher abducted in north Atlanta.
Hammond, 45, has filed appeals claiming the conviction should be reversed because his trial lawyer made mistakes that led to his 1990 murder conviction. And his lawyers have claimed that they need more time to investigate the state's supply of a lethal injection drug amid a nationwide shortage.
Georgia's Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal Tuesday night from Hammond's legal team that questioned the legality of using execution drugs that came from a company operating out of a driving school in London.
Through it all, prosecutors have urged judges to uphold the conviction of the man nicknamed "Demon."
The court records lay out Love's killing in stark terms. The petite instructor was returning home from a "career chat" meeting with friends in north Atlanta when her car ran out of gas. As she walked down the road, a maroon Cutlass sedan carrying Hammond, his girlfriend Janice Weldon and his 18-year-old cousin Maurice Porter offered help.
She declined, telling the group she lived nearby. Before they drove away, someone in the car realized Love had tricked them, and Hammond jumped out with a sawed-off shotgun and threw Love into the car.
They drove her to an elementary school in a rundown neighborhood, where Porter rifled through her purse and found a little cash and ATM cards. At gunpoint, Hammond forced Love to reveal her pin number. But she was so nervous she gave him the wrong number.
Hammond sent Porter and Weldon to withdraw money from her account. When Weldon realized they would be returning empty handed, she told Porter: "Demon going to be mad," according to court records.
She was right. Hammond hit Love repeatedly with the gun barrel, and Porter pulled her aside and raped her. After a disgusted Weldon left, Hammond bound Love's hands, feet and neck with coat hangers and covered her in a blanket. She somehow managed to free her hands, yelling "Don't do it."
Then, Hammond marched Love into the woods. About three minutes later, Porter heard a gunshot and saw Hammond return with blood on his face. When Porter said to his cousin, "you didn't do what I think you did," Hammond's response was "had to."
Love's disappearance put her friends and family into a frenzy. Her fiance, Mark Kaplan, who had proposed just a week before she went missing, found her abandoned red Mustang and prodded police to launch an investigation. Then he made flyers, organized rallies and turned his home into a staging area for hundreds of volunteers.
It was almost a year until investigators had a break in the case. In July 1989, Weldon, infuriated after suffering a particularly brutal beating by Hammond, went to the police station and told them about Love. Officers outfitted her with a recording device and sent her to talk to Porter, who corroborated what she said.
Authorities arrested Porter and Hammond, and they found Love's body in August 1989 about 30 yards from where Porter told them it would be.
Porter pleaded guilty to murder and rape charges and was sentenced to life in prison. Weldon was given immunity for her testimony.
Hammond's lawyers tried a new appeal strategy last week in a bid to delay the execution, saying they needed more time to investigate the state's supply of sodium thiopental, a lethal injection drug that's in short supply. They said in a hearing Monday that Georgia got the drug from Dream Pharma, a London company based in a driving school.
A Fulton County judge rejected the argument, saying Hammond had no evidence the drug was "adulterated or inferior." But his attorney appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday, claiming the state is about to execution someone using drugs illegally obtained from a "fly-by-night supplier operating from the back of a driving school in England."
Georgia attorneys have pushed back, contending there's no proof that the lethal injection drugs won't work.
Georgia's top court denied Hammond's appeal late Tuesday, and Hammond's attorneys were expected to ask federal judges for a reprieve.
Love's friends and family, meanwhile, are still trying to cope with her death. Roz Cohen, an administrator at The Epstein School, where Love worked, recalled a vivacious, energetic teacher whose life ended far too soon.
"She was so excited about her future," said Cohen. "A life, right at the beginning, was just cut short because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time."