The white cardboard box with Carlton Gary's name printed on the side offers new insight into the condemned killer.
The box contains detailed records kept by the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office during the more than two years Gary spent in the Muscogee County Jail awaiting trial.
There is a handwritten suicide note presumably from Gary found after he attempted to hang himself with a bed sheet. There is documentation of Gary’s failed escape attempt. And there is also a jail report filed after Gary set fire to items inside his cell.
Records also show he was belligerent when deputies had to move him from the jail to the Government Center.
The material was obtained by the Ledger-Enquirer under Georgia’s Open Records Act and reviewed in Sheriff John Darr’s office on Monday.
Barring a stay of execution, Gary is set to be put to death tonight for his convictions in three of the seven “Stocking Stranger” murders during 1977 and 1978. He was arrested in May 1984 and was in the local jail until after his conviction in late August 1986.
Retired Sheriff Gene Hodge, who served from 1980 to 1999, was at Gary’s Georgia Pardons and Paroles Board hearing Monday. When asked about his observations of Gary, he told the board about the escape attempt but did not mention the other incidents.
Read the complete story in the ledger-enquirer.com