An Alabama man who admitted to the brutal rape and murder of a woman more than a decade ago was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, April 24.
James Osgood, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m. at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, according to a statement from the Alabama Attorney General’s office. His death comes after he spent over ten years on death row for the 2010 killing of Tracy Lynn Brown.
According to court records and an arrest affidavit, Osgood confessed to authorities that he and his then-girlfriend, Tonya Vandyke — Brown’s cousin — sexually assaulted Brown before Osgood slit her throat and stabbed her in the back inside her Chilton County home. Vandyke is currently serving a life sentence for her role in the crime.
In his final moments, Osgood addressed Brown directly. “I haven’t said her name since that day,” he said, according to the Associated Press. In the week leading up to his execution, he accepted his fate, telling reporters, “I took a life, so mine was forfeited,” and described himself as a believer in “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
Osgood was convicted of capital murder in 2014 and sentenced to death. While he pursued appeals for several years, he ultimately reaffirmed his guilt and requested the state to move forward with his execution.
Brown’s body was discovered on October 23, 2010, after she failed to report to work, sparking concern among her employer. Prosecutors said Osgood and Vandyke had discussed dark fantasies of kidnapping and torturing someone before acting on them.
Chief Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson called the killing the fulfillment of a “twisted fantasy” and told jurors that Brown’s life was taken because of Osgood’s violent desires, USA Today reported.
During appeals, Osgood’s attorneys argued that the encounter between the trio was initially consensual but spiraled out of control — a claim prosecutors strongly rejected.
Tracy Lynn Brown was remembered by her family as a hardworking, kind woman who had recently rebuilt her life after a divorce. “She totally restructured her life, started from scratch,” her stepsister Trish Jackson told USA Today. “She cared a lot about taking care of others and helping.”
Meanwhile, Alison Mollman, Osgood’s longtime attorney with the ACLU of Alabama, reflected on her client’s humanity. “We will remember Taz the person, not James Osgood the ‘criminal,’” she said, using his family nickname. “We will remember that actions may be evil or bad, but people are redeemable.”