ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man who dropped his appeals and said he deserved to die for a 2010 rape and murder was executed Thursday evening, using his final words to apologize to the woman he killed.
James Osgood, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m. following a three-drug injection at a south Alabama prison, authorities said.
A jury in 2014 convicted Osgood of capital murder in the death of Tracy Lynn Brown in Chilton County. Prosecutors said Osgood cut her throat after he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted her.
Strapped to a gurney and wearing a tan prison uniform, Osgood used his last moments to speak about his victim.
“I haven’t said her name since that day,” Osgood said, adding that was because he was unsure if he should say it. “Tracy, I apologize.”
The curtains opened to the witness room at 6:09 p.m. It was unclear what time the injection began. As the execution got underway, Osgood looked toward family members seated in a witness room. Family and friends cried quietly as he lost consciousness.
His breathing became deep and labored and his head fell back on the gurney at about 6:15 p.m. His breathing was no longer visible by about 6:18 p.m. Several minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
Brown, 44, was found dead in her home on Oct. 23, 2010, after her employer became concerned when she did not show up for work.
Prosecutors said Osgood admitted to police that he and his girlfriend sexually assaulted Brown after discussing how they had shared fantasies about kidnapping and torturing someone. The pair forced their victim to perform sex acts at gunpoint. They said Osgood then killed Brown by cutting her throat. His girlfriend, who was Brown’s cousin, was sentenced to life in prison.
The jury in 2014 took 40 minutes to convict him and unanimously recommended a death sentence. His initial death sentence was thrown out by an appeals court. At resentencing in 2018, Osgood asked for another death sentence, saying he didn’t want the families to endure another hearing.
Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said the victim's family members witnessed the execution in a separate viewing room. They chose not to make a statement to the media, he said.
Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement, calling the killing “premeditated, gruesome and disturbing.”
“I pray that her loved ones can feel some sense of closure today," the governor said.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said “my heart and prayers are with Tracy’s family.”
“No one should have to endure the pain they’ve carried or relive the horror of her tragic and senseless death,” Marshall added.
Osgood told AP last week he had dropped his appeals because he was guilty and thought his execution should go forward.
“I’m a firm believer in — like I said in court — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I took a life, so mine was forfeited. I don’t believe in sitting here and wasting everybody’s time and everybody’s money,” Osgood said.
The Death Penalty Information Center reported last year that 165 of the 1,650 people executed since 1977 had asked to be put to death. A moratorium on the death penalty ended that year, and the center said the overwhelming majority of the execution volunteers since had histories of mental illness, substance abuse or suicidal ideation.
Alison Mollman, who represented Osgood for the last decade, said in a statement that Osgood — called “Taz” by his friends — was “more than his worst actions.”
“He made mistakes, terrible ones that he regretted until his dying day, but he didn’t make excuses for his actions. He was accountable and he was sincere,” said Mollman, legal director for the ACLU of Alabama.
The execution was the second in Alabama this year and the 14th in the nation overall.
On Feb. 6, Alabama used nitrogen gas to execute Demetrius Frazier, 52, for his conviction in the 1991 rape and killing of a 41-year-old woman. Alabama in 2024 became the first state to conduct nitrogen gas executions, putting three people to death by that method last year. It involves replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen gas through a respirator mask, causing death by lack of oxygen.
For decades, lethal injection was the preferred way to execute death row prisoners in the U.S. But recent problems procuring and administering the drugs led some states to consider alternative methods. Condemned prisoners in Alabama can choose execution by injection, the electric chair or nitrogen gas.
Osgood picked lethal injection. Hamm said it took a total of five attempts to get the two required IV lines connected to Osgood.
This undated photo provided by Alabama Department of Corrections, shows James Osgood, who was convicted of capital murder for the 2010 rape and murder of Tracy Lynn Brown, in Chilton County, and is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection, Thursday, April 24, 2025. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP)
FILE -In this March 12, 2016 file photo, the sign to The William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., is displayed. (Sharon Steinmann/AL.com via AP, File)
FILE - This undated image provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate James Osgood, who was sentenced to death for the 2010 rape and murder of Tracy Lynn Brown. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, File)
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Crowds poured into the streets of Uruguay's capital on Wednesday to bid a poignant farewell to former President José Mujica, a former guerrilla who became a pioneering leader and icon of the Latin American left, remembered most for his humility, simple lifestyle and ideological earnestness.
Thousands of people mourning the death of their former leader, affectionately known as “Pepe,” joined the procession as Mujica's flag-furled coffin, borne on a gun carriage, made its way through downtown Montevideo.
The cortege culminated nearly four hours later at the country's parliament, where banners, wreaths, handwritten notes and portraits littered the lawn and emotions ran high. “Farewell, Pepe” was painted across the walls of the historic Legislative Palace.
Mujica died Tuesday at the age of 89, just days before his 90th birthday, in his home on the outskirts of Montevideo — a three-room farmhouse where he lived throughout his life and during his presidency (2010-2015), in rejection of Uruguay’s opulent presidential mansion. Mujica was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in April 2024.
His coffin will lie in state before the funeral on Thursday, which is expected to draw an array of sympathetic left-wing leaders, from Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Uruguay's presidency said.
Chants of “Pepe, dear, the people are with you!” rose as the horse-drawn hearse passed through the streets on Wednesday. Uruguayans applauded from balconies, packed the sidewalks along the route and formed snaking lines outside the parliamentary seat of Uruguay, waiting to pay their respects to Mujica's closed casket. Some were wiping tears and others somberly bowing their heads.
“It’s like losing a family member,” said Estela Piriz, a 69-year-old nurse among those gathered for the wake. “I have come to say my final goodbye.”
That slow and steady stream of regular people — as well as lawmakers, ministers and former officials — seemed a fitting tableau for the lying-in-state of the humble chrysanthemum farmer whose folksy maxims on excessive consumerism and bold progressive policies earned him admiration at home and cult status abroad.
Among those paying tribute to the late leader in the echoey, stained glass hall were Mujica’s rivals and critics in a sign that the leftist leader’s legacy transcended his politics.
During his tenure, as Mujica legalized marijuana and same-sex marriage, enacted the region’s first sweeping abortion rights law and established Uruguay as a leader in alternative energy, he also won respect for meeting with his political foes despite polarization across the continent.
“We had many disagreements, but in life it’s always better to focus on the good things,” former conservative President Luis Alberto Lacalle de Herrera, who governed from 1990-1995, told reporters as well-wishers slowly processed around the coffin.
Another former right-wing president, Julio María Sanguinetti, now 89, acknowledged that he and Mujica were often “on opposite sides” of issues. But he said their bond went beyond partisan loyalties.
“We are the same generation that lived through all the ups and downs of the country in the last 70 years,” he said. “Peace is made with your adversaries.”
Uruguay’s president, Yamandú Orsi, Mujica’s protégé from his left-wing Broad Front party, declared Wednesday-to-Friday national days of mourning in a presidential decree that praised Mujica’s “humanist philosophy,” closing the government to all but necessary operations while flags dropped to half-staff.
Orsi and Lucía Topolansky, Mujica’s life partner and fellow guerilla-turned-politician, launched the funeral procession together from the government headquarters. After privately saying farewell to Mujica's casket, Topolansky emerged from the Legislative Palace with a stunned expression, leaving quickly before speaking to reporters.
A former mayor and history teacher, Orsi has, like his mentor, shunned the pomp and circumstance of the presidential palace in favor of commuting from his family home. Mujica made some of his last public appearances campaigning and casting his ballot for Orsi last fall.
Before overseeing the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the world’s most socially liberal democracies as president, Mujica robbed banks, planted bombs and abducted businessmen as the leader of a violent leftist guerrilla group in the 1960s known as the Tupamaros.
A former activist who worked with Mujica and his wife during the country's 1985 transition from dictatorship to democracy, Beatriz Benzano recalled how her colleague's revolutionary fervor transformed into a spirit of compromise once he assumed office.
“Pepe had his days as a former guerrilla, but he always said that you had to make room for young people and be open to dialogue, even if you don’t share the same ideas," Benzano, now in her 90s, said as she passed through the parliament to pay tribute.
Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi covers the casket of the late, former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica with the national flag at the presidential palace in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)
The funeral procession for the late former President Jose Mujica makes its way from the presidential palace to the National Assembly in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, left, stands with Lucia Topolansky, widow of the late, former President Jose Mujica, next to his casket at the presidential palace in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Mourners watch the casket of Uruguay's former President Jose Mujica from the sidelines of his funeral procession from the presidential palace to the National Assembly in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)
The funeral procession for the late former President Jose Mujica makes its way from the presidential palace to the National Assembly in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
A woman watches the funeral procession of former President Jose Mujica from the presidential palace to the National Assembly, next to graffiti that reads in Spanish: "Farewell dear old man," in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)
Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, left, stands with Lucia Topolansky, widow of the late, former President Jose Mujica, next to his casket at the presidential palace in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)
Supporters walk behind the casket of Uruguay's former President Jose Mujica during his funeral procession from the presidential palace to the National Assembly in Montevideo, Uruguay, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Santiago Mazzarovich)
