Georgia to execute ex sailor Wednesday night

ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia is set to execute a former Navy crewman who killed a fellow sailor.

Travis Hittson, who’s 45, is scheduled to receive an injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the April 1992 killing of Conway Utterbeck.

Court documents show Hittson, who was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, went with Utterbeck and a third sailor, Edward Vollmer, to Vollmer’s parents’ home in Warner Robins. Hittson and Vollmer went out drinking and killed Utterbeck upon returning home.

Hittson’s lawyers had argued his life should be spared because he’s shown great remorse and because Vollmer manipulated him into killing Utterbeck.

Vollmer reached a plea deal with prosecutors and is serving a life sentence for the killing.

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