GEORGIA (USA): ANDREW ALLEN COOK EXECUTED
February 21, 2013: Andrew Allen Cook, 38, white, was executed in Georgia.
He was the 1st inmate to be executed since the state changed its procedure in July from a 3-drug combination to a single dose of pentobarbital.
A Monroe County jury sentenced Cook to death after he was convicted in the January 2, 1995 slayings of Grant Patrick Hendrickson, 22, and Michele Lee Cartagena, 19. Cook wasn't charged until more than 2 years later. He confessed to his father, a Macon FBI agent who ended up testifying at his son's trial. He said what he did was senseless.
Cook becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death in Georgia and the 53rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.
Cook becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1323rd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. The state's attorney general has reportedly been rushing the execution prior to the expiration of the pentobarbital stocks on March 1. It is currently unknown whether Georgia will be able to procure more supplies of the drug. Georgia currently has over 90 inmates of death row, and prior to Cook's death had 17 vials of pentobarbital, (enough for 6 lethal injections), corrections officials told AP. Now the number stands at 5. (Sources: Athens Banner-Herald & Rick Halperin, 21/02/2013)
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