On Thursday afternoon, the Alabama Department of Corrections executed Geoffrey Todd West, who was convicted for the 1997 murder of Margaret Parrish Berry during an armed robbery of a convenience store.
West was executed using nitrogen gas, an execution method first used in both Alabama and the nation in January of 2024.
Kim Chandler reported for the Associated Press that West declined to make any last remarks and was pronounced dead approximately 26 minutes after the execution began. Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said it went “just as expected, according to protocol.”
“I apologized privately to the family of Margaret Parrish Berry,” West wrote in a statement provided to the press by his attorney. He added that he was “humbled by the forgiveness her son, Will, has extended.” The statement also emphasized West’s recent baptism into the Catholic Church and encouraged members of the public to “find God.”
West had told the Associated Press earlier during a phone call that “there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it and wish that I could take that back.”
One of Margaret Berry’s sons, Will Berry, penned a letter to Governor Kay Ivey earlier this year asking for her to extend clemency in the case. He explained that he believes “vengeance isn’t for the state” and “it’s for the Lord.” On September 11, Ivey sent a letter back, saying that she would allow the execution to proceed.
“I believe that in seeking to execute Mr. West, the state of Alabama is playing God,” Berry wrote in a commentary piece published by the Alabama Reflector. “I don’t want anyone to exact revenge in my name, nor in my mother’s. I believe life without the possibility of parole is just punishment.”
ADOC denied a request for Berry and West to meet over security regulations. West’s lawyers described this decision as a “lost opportunity” for closure.
“Alabama law imposes death as punishment for the most egregious forms of murder, and there was no question of Mr. West’s guilt by the jury in this case or any court over the last three decades,” Ivey said in a statement to the press. “As I expressed in a letter to one of Ms. Berry’s sons, it is my solemn duty as governor to carry out these laws. Tonight, the lawfully imposed death sentence has been carried out, justice has been served, and I pray for healing for all.”
In a statement released on Thursday, Berry said the family “pray that [West] gains peace when he meets his maker.”
According to an Alabama Department of Corrections webpage, West’s execution was the twenty-fourth execution carried out under Ivey as governor of Alabama.
