Gissendaner Execution: Family Says Don't Forget About Victim

As the scheduled execution of convicted murderer Kelly Renee Gissendaner nears, the victim’s family released a statement through the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office, saying the focus should be on Douglas Gissendaner.

Kelly Gissendaner, condemned for masterminding the murder of her husband Douglas in Gwinnett in 1997, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m., Sept. 29, at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

If executed, she would be the first woman put to death in Georgia in 70 years, and the 35th inmate overall to die by lethal injection. She is Georgia’s only woman on death row,

In the statement released Monday, the family described Douglas Gissendaner as “undisputedly a family man, a great friend and an even greater father,” whose life was not Kelly Gissendaner’s to take.

Here’s the statement in its entirety:

We have been asked by various news outlets for a statement regarding the pending execution of Kelly Gissendaner. While the focus should be on Doug, the victim, we offer the following in response.

Kelly planned and executed Doug’s murder. She targeted him and his death was intentional. Kelly chose to have her day in court and after hearing the facts of this case, a jury of her peers sentenced her to death. In the last 18 years, our mission has been to seek justice for Doug’s murder and to keep his memory alive. We have faith in our legal system and do believe that Kelly has been afforded every right that our legal system affords. As the murderer, she’s been given more rights and opportunity over the last 18 years than she ever afforded to Doug who, again, is the victim here. She had no mercy, gave him no rights, no choices, nor the opportunity to live his life. His life was not hers to take.

But we want to take this opportunity to ask you to focus on Doug, not Kelly. For those of you who did not have the pleasure of knowing Doug, he was a truly wonderful person, the kind of selfless person who always thought of others instead of himself. His last act on earth was helping his friends. He was a friendly, trusting, good-hearted soul with a smile that will never be forgotten. He was undisputedly a family man, a great friend and an even greater father who loved and sacrificed everything for the sake of his daughter and two stepsons. For those of us that loved him, we will always feel great sorrow and indescribable pain at how he was so brutally taken from us, but also take comfort in knowing that he’s in heaven waiting for each and every one of us to rejoin him someday.

We would like to thank our family, friends and other supporters for your continued prayers and words of comfort and support. We have been following online comments very closely and while we prefer to keep our privacy, know that we are truly thankful for your kind comments.

To all who read this---we ask you to remember Doug and honor his memory by telling the ones you love how much you love them. He would love that. We pray that his memory will bring a smile to the faces of all that knew him and even those who didn’t.

Kelly Gissendaner’s scheduled execution has been postponed two times previously -- in February due to a winter storm, and in March, when authorities found a cloudy appearance in the drug that was to be used for the lethal injection.

Gissendaner, of Auburn, Ga., was convicted of plotting the murder of Douglas near Dacula in 1997.

She was found guilty of convincing her boyfriend Gregory Owen to murder Douglas on Feb. 7, 1997, then went to lengths to deny her involvement, prosecutors said. Owen, who was sentenced to life in prison, avoided the death penalty by helping prosecutors in the case against Gissendaner.

Photo: Kelly Gissendaner; Georgia Dept. of Corrections

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