Michael Carl George

Michael Carl George (1958 – February 6, 1997) was an American murderer, kidnapper, child molester and possible serial killer who is best known for the murder of teenager Alexander Sztanko, which he committed after being released from prison on an involuntary manslaughter conviction relating to the similar death of another youth in 1979. His first victim's body has never been found, and after his final arrest, George reportedly confessed to killing a third victim who, if real, was never discovered. Convicted and sentenced to death for the Sztanko murder, he was executed in 1997.

A third and final execution date for George was scheduled for February 6, 1997. This time, all of his appeals and motions were denied by the relevant courts, allowing for his execution to proceed forward. Some newspapers remarked that this was one of the fastest proceedings since the state resumed executions in the 1980s – at the time, 15 of the 49 inmates on Virginia's death row had been imprisoned for longer than him. On the aforementioned date, George was executed via lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. He offered no final statement.

George's execution was rescheduled for 1995, but was delayed yet again after he and his attorneys filed a motion to the Supreme Court arguing that prosecutors did not conclusively prove that he had killed Sztanko during the course of a robbery. The appeal was denied by a federal judge later that same year, and in 1996, a federal court upheld his conviction.

Due to the overwhelming amount of evidence against him, George was swiftly tried, convicted and sentenced to death for murdering Sztanko. His original execution date was scheduled for mid-April 1993, but was rescheduled after he was granted a stay by the Supreme Court of Virginia to file another appeal. Both this and a subsequent appeal to the SCOTUS were denied.

On June 16, 1990, 15-year-old Alexander Eugene Sztanko left his parents' home in Woodbridge to go trail riding with some friends. Along the way, he was abducted by George and dragged deeper into the forest, where he was handcuffed to a nearby tree. After this, George proceeded to sexually assault and torture Sztanko – this consisting mostly of cutting him with a machete on various parts of the body and beating him, but also included using the stun gun's electro shocks on his genitalia. Sztanko eventually began to cry for help, which prompted George to pull out a Beretta 92 he was carrying with him and shoot him once in the head, killing him instantly. After collecting all of his equipment, George left the crime scene, leaving the body tied to the tree.

In October 1990, Paul Ebert, who was still employed as the commonwealth's attorney, claimed in both interviews and statements addressed to the courts that George admitted to killing not only Perry and Sztanko, but a third victim he would not name. Little is known of this purported third victim, aside from George's claims that he picked him up from a McDonald's in Woodbridge and that the killing had occurred within the last ten years. Despite inquiries from both Stafford and Prince William Counties into cold cases, accompanied by a separate investigation by authorities in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where George had spent some time, no case matched the one described by the accused. Because of this, George was not prosecuted for this alleged offense, and tried only for Sztanko's murder.

In August 1982, however, authorities received an anonymous tip that George was involved in Perry's disappearance, and not long after, he turned himself in and changed his story. In this version, he claimed that he and the boy had gone target shooting near the power lines between the I-95 and State Route 234. George claimed that he had placed his gun on the hood of the Bronco and got out to set some targets, and while his back was turned, Perry supposedly accidentally shot himself. Fearing that he would be arrested for murder, George left the area and returned later that night, where he dragged the body deeper in the woods, placed it in a ravine and covered it with leaves and branches.

On May 22, 1979, George lured 9-year-old Larry Wayne Perry away from his grandparents' home in Dumfries, whereupon he is believed to have killed him and buried his body in a ravine.

Relatively little is known about George's life. He was born in 1958 in Hartwood, Virginia, and reportedly tortured animals while growing up. As he grew older, he started taking interest in young boys and was always in the company of young men.