An Alabama man, Keith Edmund Gavin, is facing a scheduled execution on Thursday night for the murder of delivery driver William Clayton Jr. in Cherokee County. Gavin, 64, is set to receive a lethal injection at a prison in southwest Alabama for the shooting death of Clayton, who was killed during an attempted robbery at an ATM in downtown Centre on March 6, 1998.
Gavin, who is Muslim, successfully filed a lawsuit to prevent a post-execution autopsy, citing religious beliefs. The state agreed to forgo the autopsy in Gavin's case. Prosecutors stated that there was no doubt about Gavin's guilt and the severity of his crime, as he had a prior conviction for murder in Illinois.
