By David Simposon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DEKALB, Ga. — Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the accused killer of two DeKalb County police officers, District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming announced Tuesday.
William Woodward, 27, is accused of killing officers Ricky Bryant Jr., 26, and Eric Barker, 33, on Jan. 16. Witnesses said the officers were shot while trying to frisk a man at the Glenwood Gardens apartment complex, where they were working an extra security job in police uniform.
Each officer left a wife and four children.
“It is our hope that we will send a strong message to individuals who commit crimes in this county that we will not tolerate such horrific acts of violence,” Keyes Fleming said.
Georgia law permits a death sentence when jurors find a murder was accompanied by certain “aggravating” factors. Keyes Fleming said those factors in Woodward’s case are the multiple killings, killing officers on duty and killing to avoid lawful arrest.
Woodward is being held without bond in the DeKalb County jail.
His case becomes the third death penalty prosecution awaiting trial in DeKalb. Among the other large metro counties, Fulton has the most pending death penalty cases with 12. Cobb has three and Gwinnett two.
No DeKalb jury has returned a death sentence since state law was changed in 1993 to allow a sentence of life without parole. The county’s last death penalty trial was for Bautista Ramirez in 2003. A jury found him guilty of murdering a Doraville police officer but sentenced him to life with a chance of parole.
In the other two pending DeKalb death penalty cases: Clayton Jerrod Ellington is accused of killing his wife and 2-year-old twin sons with a hammer and Willie Kelsey is accused of killing a 7-year-old boy in a home invasion.
Another DeKalb death penalty trial was averted last month when Aaron Nicholas Webb pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life without parole in an agreement with prosecutors.
Webb, 20, admitted to strangling Oladotun Adedeji, a 53-year-old mother of four, in a robbery at her clothing store on Memorial Drive on May 23, 2007.
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution