Crime & Safety

DeYoung Executed for Killing Parents, Sister

A video camera captures the death of the murderer from Northeast Cobb.

Northeast Cobb killer was executed Thursday night with a video camera recording his dying minutes in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center in Jackson.

DeYoung was declared dead at 8:04 p.m., less than 15 minutes after a three-drug injection procedure began, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

A videographer recorded the execution, believed to be the first American execution caught on video since a 1992 case using the gas chamber in California. It appears to be the first lethal injection videotaped in the United States, the AJC says.

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Attorney General Sam Olens and the Georgia Department of Corrections failed in their court attempts , ordered by a Fulton County judge overseeing another death-row inmate’s case.

The tape could be used to support claims that Georgia’s new mix of execution drugs allows pain and suffering but won’t be made public.

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DeYoung was executed for the murders of his parents and 14-year-old sister at their Northeast Cobb home in 1993, when he was a 19-year-old college student.

Olens and Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren were among the witnesses to the execution, the Marietta Daily Journal reports.

The AJC and MDJ differed slightly on DeYoung’s final words:

  • “I’m sorry for everyone I've hurt,” according to the AJC.
  • “I’m sorry to anyone I ever hurt. I love you, Dawn. Remember to smile,” according to the MDJ.


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