Troy man executed in Atmore
Published 9:35 pm Thursday, September 9, 2010
Despite a recent petition for a stay, 50-year-old Holly Wood of Troy became the fourth inmate to be executed at Holman Correctional Facility this year.
According to reports, Wood died by lethal injection shortly after 6:20 p.m. with a few members of his family on hand. He had no last words.
Wood’s petition for a stay claimed he was mentally disabled and had insufficient counsel when a jury recommended he receive the death penalty for the murder of his former 34-year-old girlfriend Ruby Gosha.
Wood, 33 at the time, was convicted of breaking into Gosha’s home and shooting her in the head with a shotgun as she was lying in bed on Sept. 1, 1993.
His attorneys claimed he had an IQ of 70 or less and that his trial lawyers wrongly failed to tell the jury about his mental limitations, according to reports. Prosecutors said he was not as mentally disabled as claimed, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal.