Witnesses will be brought into the observation room of the chamber. A curtain lifts allowing them to see Lynd. The warden will read the order of the court to execute Lynd.

Lynd will be offered the opportunity to speak any last words. Some condemned inmates have something they wish to say, Czachowski says, while others do not.

Then, two grams of sodium pentothol will be given to Lynd along with a saline solution to keep his veins from collapsing. This is followed by 50 milligrams of Pavulon, a paralyzing agent. Lynd then receives the killing stroke: Potassium chloride to stop his heart.

Czachowski says many inmates appear to simply go to sleep. Some even snore before they die.

The warden will take Lynd’s pulse and declare him dead. The curtain will close to the witnesses. Lynd’s body will be sent to the Georgia State Crime Lab. After an autopsy, Lynd’s body will be released to the family.

***

The original sentence, the one a jury returned late on an afternoon in February 1990, was death by electrocution. But the chair has been replaced by the gurney, electricity with a cocktail of chemicals.

The trial started a little more than a year after Lynd helped Berrien County authorities locate Ginger Moore’s body behind a shed in Tift County. A few months prior to trial, on Oct. 25, 1989, Lynd had been found competent to stand trial. Yet as the February 1990 trial started, the defense team stated Lynd remained incompetent, unable to finish simple tasks in the Berrien County Jail, but the trial moved forward.

Lynd was displeased with his defense team. He had selected attorney Clyde Wayne Royals, who had not previously worked a death-penalty case. To aid Royals, the court selected attorney Jack Carter and Roger Douglas. In court, Lynd expressed he should have been given the right to choose whom he wanted as court-appointed attorneys. During trial week, Alapaha Circuit Judge W.D. “Jack” Knight appointed public defender Jay Reese Franklin to the defense team.

The defense team pushed for a change of venue, which led to representatives from The Valdosta Daily Times, The Tifton Gazette, WALB-TV, and the now-defunct WVGA 44 testifying on the coverage given to the Lynd case and the extent of each media organization’s coverage area.

Throughout the hearings, the jury selection, and the trial, Carter led the defense in objections and motions for mistrials. Motions for mistrials were entered at almost every turn. A mistrial would declare the jury tainted and mean the case would have to be heard again at a later date in front of a new jury. All of these motions were denied.

One motion for a mistrial came as then-Alapaha District Attorney Robert Ellis questioned a witness who served as an investigator for the defense. In front of a standing-room-only crowd on a Sunday afternoon in Berrien County Superior Court, Ellis asked the witness if he’d ever been convicted of two counts of burglary in Wayne County; the witness said he’d been pardoned of those charges.

Ellis then asked the witness if he’d ever accidentally shot his girlfriend between the eyes while practicing the quick draw with a pistol. The witness said yes, and laughter erupted in the courtroom. Ellis then asked if the witness had ever shot his wife in the rear-end doing the same thing. The witness testified that, no, he had not shot his wife in the rear-end because he was in jail on the Wayne burglary charges at the time. The witness said his wife had shot herself in her own rear-end.

Sustained laughter filled the courtroom. Carter made a motion for a mistrial on the grounds of humor in the courtroom. Judge Knight denied the motion, essentially ruling, if it’s funny, it’s funny.