Ga. Parole Board Denies Clemency for Marcus Wellons

Marcus Wellons (Courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)
Marcus Wellons (Courtesy Georgia Department of Corrections)

ATLANTA — The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied a clemency request from a man sentenced to death for the 1989 rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl.

Marcus Wellons was convicted of the murder and rape of 15-year-old India Roberts in Cobb County on Aug. 31, 1989. The jury found as statutory aggravating circumstances that the murder was committed in the course of two other capital felonies: rape and kidnapping with bodily injury.

In June 1993, a jury convicted Marcus Wellons of malice murder and sentenced him to death. Wellons received a life sentence for the rape.

The Georgia Supreme Court later upheld the conviction and affirmed the jury’s verdict. Wellons has concluded his state and federal habeas corpus proceedings.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal in October 2013.

Wellons is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. tonight at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.