(ATMORE, Ala.) (AP) June 11 - An Alabama death row inmate who taunted his victim's mother with grisly, graphic drawings and writings on the Internet awaited execution set for Thursday at Holman Prison.
Jack Trawick, 62, was scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 1992 abduction and slaying of Stephanie Gach, a 21-year-old college student in Birmingham.
Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said Trawick had not asked for a stay of execution Thursday with the execution just hours away. His attorney, Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, said he could not comment on whether a stay would be sought.
Trawick drew wide notice several years ago after he described how he beat, strangled and stabbed Gach and killed other women in writings posted on the Internet by a pen pal. He even taunted the victim's mother, Mary Kate Gach, by name.
The Alabama Legislature passed a law this year aimed at Trawick that prohibits inmates from using such postings to profit from their crimes. Trawick did not sell his artwork and writings, which are still online.
"We've fought and we've fought but it comes down to the First Amendment," Mary Gach said Wednesday.
Trawick was moved earlier in the week from his cell on death row to a holding cell adjacent to the execution chamber.
Trawick was sentenced to die in 1994 for Gach's killing. He was also convicted in the 1992 killing of Frances Aileen Pruitt and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in that case.
He also confessed to the 1972 killing of a Birmingham-area teenager, but was never tried in that case.
Prosecutors said Trawick abducted Gach in the parking lot of her apartment complex on Oct. 9, 1992 in Irondale, a suburb east of Birmingham. She was strangled, stabbed through the heart and beaten with a hammer. Her body was found the next day beside an isolated road south of Birmingham.
Gach's mother said she will be in Atmore at the nearby Fountain Correctional Institute, but will not watch the execution. She said Stephanie's sister, Heather, plans to view the execution. Prison officials said a sister and son of Pruitt also plan to witness it.
Stephanie Gach was a student at Jefferson State Community College and had attended the University of Montevallo, where she studied psychology.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
