JACKSON, Ga., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Jack Alderman, the longest-serving deathrow inmate in the United States, was executed in Georgia Tuesday for the slaying of his wife..

Alderman, 57, of Savannah, Ga., gave no final statement as he was put to death by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson, The Savannah (Ga.) Morning News reported Wednesday. He had been on deathrow since 1975 for the slaying of his wife, Barbara Jean Alderman, the previous year.


Two juries, one in 1975 and another in 1984, sentenced him to die, the newspaper said. Last-minute appeals to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Georgia Supreme Court failed, despite pleas from death penalty opponents in the United States and Great Britain.

Britain's Law Society and Bar Council had urged British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to use diplomatic channels to stay what they called the "obscene" execution of an innocent man. They said Alderman was sentenced to die based solely on the testimony of a co-defendant who later said he had made a deal with prosecutors to implicate Alderman in his wife's death.

The co-defendant, John Arthur Brown, was paroled after just 12 years in prison. Prosecutors said Alderman instigated the crime.