February 8, 2010

ATLANTA -- A Georgia death row inmate who was convicted of killing his former girlfriend and another woman in a 1986 robbery at the Newton County grocery store where they worked is set to be executed this month.

Corrections official will execute Melbert Ray Ford on Feb. 23. The execution is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, in Jackson.

Ford was convicted for the deaths of Martha Matich and Lisa Chapman. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied an appeal in October 2008.

If executed, Ford will be the 24th inmate put to death by lethal injection in Georgia.

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