Nicholas Ingram

At approximately 6:30 p.m. on June 3, 1983, Ingram, armed with a pearl-handled pistol, entered the home of J.C. and Mary Sawyer and demanded the use of their phone. Ingram stated that he wanted money and the keys to their car. He fired a shot through the floor of the living room to prove that the gun was not a toy and threatened to blow their heads off if they did not comply with his demands. In response, Mrs. Sawyer gave Ingram $60 and J.C. gave him the keys to his blue-and-white Chevrolet pickup truck.

She fell to the ground and pretended she was dead until she heard the truck drive off. Realizing that her husband was dead, Mrs. Sawyer managed to untie herself and went to a neighbor's house to call the police. Earlier that day, Ingram had gone to a pawn shop with his friend Kevin Plummer, in the latter's car, to sell some automobile wheels and a ring. Then they went to see a friend of Ingram's who worked at a convenience store. Afterwards, Ingram and Plummer drove to Ingram's father's house, where Ingram retrieved a pearl-handled .38 revolver. He told Plummer that he knew where he could get a vehicle that he was going to use to go to California. He directed Plummer to a driveway that led through the woods and up Blackjack Mountain in Cobb County. They drove a short distance up the driveway and stopped. Ingram got out and told Plummer to wait for him. He told Plummer that he might have to pistol-whip them but he was not sure he could shoot them. He walked up the driveway and out of sight. Plummer decided not to wait and drove home. At around 8 p.m., Ingram showed up at the convenience store he had visited earlier that day. He remained only a few moments, then left, driving a blue-and-white pickup truck. The pickup truck was recovered on Interstate 20 in Mississippi three days later. Inside was a motel receipt from Lincoln, Alabama, dated June 3, 1983. The motel's portion of the receipt was later obtained and the handwriting on it was identified as Ingram's. Ingram stole another car in California and was eventually arrested in Nebraska for DUI. While being questioned about the stolen automobile, Ingram told the police that he could save them some time; that if they would check with Cobb County, Georgia, they would find that he was wanted for two murders. Questioning stopped then, and was resumed by Georgia authorities after they had been contacted and had returned Ingram to Georgia. Ingram gave them a long statement in which he admitted remembering some of the events of the afternoon of June 3, including being dropped off at the Sawyer driveway, returning to find Plummer gone, getting into a truck and backing out of the driveway. He stated that he woke up the next morning in a shopping center parking lot in Alabama in the truck. He contended that he had blacked out from drinking and could not remember shooting or robbing anyone.

In seeking to halt the execution, Ingram's lawyers argued that they had only recently learned that their client had been heavily drugged and medicated by prison officials before his 1983 trial and therefore was not aware enough of the proceedings to show a contrition that might have influenced jurors not to recommend the death penalty. Ingram's appeal lawyers argued that he was given an anti-psychotic drug during his trial that made him appear to be unemotional and remorseless. They also argued that his lawyer in that trial was not told of a diagnosis that Ingram had psychiatric problems, a diagnosis that might have altered the trying of the case. The Georgia Attorney General, Mike Bowers, countered that those issues had been addressed in previous appeals. The courts agreed. District Judge Horace Ward dismissed pleas by Ingram's lawyers for a new hearing to examine alleged new evidence that he was drugged at his trial in 1983 and unable to brief his defence lawyers.

Nicholas Lee Ingram (20 November 1963 – 7 April 1995) was a British and American national, executed for murder in 1995 at the age of 31 by the US state of Georgia, using the electric chair. He was born in Britain, but had an American father. The British Prime Minister, John Major, declined to intervene and attempt to get him reprieved. He had been imprisoned since 1983 for the murder of J.C./J.W. Sawyer, and injuring his wife Eunice/Mary Sawyer, during a robbery. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, was one of many who campaigned unsuccessfully for clemency. The case received widespread media coverage in the UK.