Alabama set to execute James Osgood for woman's 'twisted fantasy' murder. What to know.
Alabama is set to execute death row inmate James Osgood on Thursday for the brutal rape and murder of his girlfriend's cousin in what one prosecutor called a "twisted fantasy."
In the months leading up to his execution by lethal injection, James Osgood dropped all his appeals, fired his attorney and told a judge that he's ready to die for his crime: the 2010 rape and murder of 44-year-old Tracy Lynn Wilemon.
While Osgood, 55, initially denied killing Wilemon, he eventually confessed to police, telling them he remembered "seeing the fear in her eyes." Osgood later urged a judge to give him the death penalty.
"I've always been a firm believer in an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life," Osgood said during a 2018 resentencing hearing. "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. I screwed up. I deserve what I was given."
Defense attorneys at trial argued that investigators used trickery to elicit a confession, though they never argued that Osgood was innocent.
Chief Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson told jurors that "a life was taken because James Osgood decided he wanted to fulfill some twisted fantasy to kill someone."
"He enjoyed it," Robinson said during his closing statement, according to the Montgomery Advertiser, part of the Paste BN Network. "The same things you heard ... that turned your stomach, turned him on."
Here's what you need to know about Osgood's execution and why Wilemon's family is choosing to witness it.
When and where is James Osgood's execution?
James Osgood will be executed by lethal injection just after 6 p.m. Thursday at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.
What did James Osgood do?
On Oct. 13, 2010, James Osgood and his girlfriend Tonya Vandyke attacked Tracy Lynn Wilemon in her bedroom, he confessed to police.
Vandyke and Wilemon were cousins who grew up together in Southern California, Wilemon's stepsister, Trisha Jackson, told Paste BN, saying the crime shocked their entire family and caused a rift that would never be repaired.
Both Osgood and Vandyke raped Wilemon and forced her to perform sex acts on them, according to Osgood's confession. Osgood slashed Wilemon's throat a number of times before stabbing her in the back.
"I remember seeing the fear in her eyes and seeing her shaking," Osgood said during his confession to investigators with the Chilton County Sheriff's Department. "I know there was a lot of cutting involved but it wasn't a crime of violence. There was no anger involved. I was scared. She wasn't dying, so I kept cutting her throat and neck."
During the horrific last moments of Wilemon's life, Osgood said he apologized.
"I told her I was sorry," he said. "It was nothing against her. She just needed to quit fighting and go."
During Osgood's sentencing, the Advertiser reported, the trial judge told him: "I can't think of a darker set of facts than what you have given us."
Osgood was sentenced to death while Vandyke is serving life in federal prison.
Who was Tracy Lynn Wilemon?
Family members describe 44-year-old Tracy Lynn Wilemon as a spunky, hard-working mother who was thriving in Clanton, Alabama. She was going through a divorce and saving money from her job at a nursing home to visit her daughter in Lake Havasu, Arizona.
"She was getting on her feet again ... She totally restructured her life, started from scratch," her stepsister, Trish Jackson, told Paste BN. "Working at the nursing home, that's part of who she was. She cared a lot about taking care of others and helping."
Jackson added: "She was thriving and happy."
Jackson said that she and her stepsister were more like real sisters and spent much of their childhood growing up in the Los Angeles suburb of Riverside along with cousin Tonya Vandyke, who would later help Osgood rape and kill Wilemon (whose legal last name was Brown when she was killed but her family prefers her maiden name to be used in print).
"We were very close," Jackson said, adding that the girls would do each other's hair, dress up, and go horseback-riding and roller-skating. As they became adults and mothers, the women remained close and were always going to the beach and throwing family barbecues, she said.
Jackson said that Wilemon had a lot of life left to live, missed the birth of a grandson and a granddaughter, and deserved so much more than the horrific ending she got.
"She was very loved," Jackson said. "She would have made an amazing grandmother."
Who is James Osgood?
Osgood had a childhood riddled with pain and abuse, and never knew his biological mother, who was a drug-addicted sex worker murdered when Osgood was a baby, according to court records.
Osgood was malnourished as an infant, sexually abused by a man at a bar as a child, had sexual encounters with other children at the age of 9, fathered a child with a 24-year-old woman when he was 14, and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital as a teen, court records say.
During that time, Osgood was passed from foster family to foster family. He attempted suicide at least once and was diagnosed with an antisocial personality disorder, records say.
During his trial, his sister testified that about the neglect and abuse they both experienced as children. Osgood wiped away tears as she spoke, the only emotion Osgood showed throughout his trial, the Advertiser reported.
Tracy Wilemon's family to witness execution
Tracy Wilemon's stepsister and stepmother, who both attended every moment of Osgood's trial, told Paste BN that they were traveling to Alabama from Southern California to witness the execution.
Both women said they've forgiven Osgood and hope that he has found God. But that doesn't mean they disagree with his sentence.
"He's deserving of this," Jackson. "I struggled with whether I believe in the death penalty or do not but I've come to the conclusion that it's God's will. Proper due process was held and this is all God's doing."
Contributing: Nick Penzenstadler, Paste BN
(This story was updated to include video.)