The murder occurred April 3, 1992, in Warner Robins.
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Hittson had helped a superior officer, Edward Vollmer, kill and dismember fellow sailor Conway Utterbeck in 1992.
Vollmer told Hittson that Utterbeck was plotting to kill the two of them, according to court records.
Vollmer and Hittson went out to several bars one night, leaving Utterbeck at the house.
The clemency petition says Vollmer exercised “unnatural dominance and control” over Hittson and manipulated him into killing Utterbeck.
The Georgia Supreme Court has unanimously denied a stay of execution for condemned Houston County killer Travis Clinton Hittson.
Hittson’s lawyers had said he was mistreated and neglected as a child and constantly craved the approval of others. Even though Hittson’s defense team did not present such evidence, the judge let Storms testify anyway, the petition said.
A judge on Tuesday rejected that challenge, and Hittson’s attorneys appealed to the state Supreme Court which rejected Hittson’s appeal Wednesday and denied a stay of execution. Hittson found Utterbeck asleep on a recliner and struck him repeatedly on the head.
“I had no emotion or nothing on my face, I know I didn’t”, Hittson later told police in his confession to the killing, court records showed. They then cleaned up Vollmer’s parents’ home, hid the baseball bat in the shed and drove back to Pensacola, where they buried the rest of Utterbeck’s remains, prosecutors said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a stay of execution for a Georgia prisoner whose lawyers say their client’s constitutional rights were violated.
Months later, investigators started questioning Utterbeck’s fellow shipmates.
Despite pleas for clemency and Hittson’s remorse for killing Utterbeck, it would appear that the execution in Georgia will move forward as scheduled. In addition to murder, Hittson was also convicted of theft by taking as a lesser offense of an armed robbery, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
Vollmer is now serving a life sentence for the crimes against Utterbeck. He was ordered to die for the malice murder conviction. After being denied parole twice in the last 17 years, he will get another chance to plead his case in front of the parole board sometime in 2020.
The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has held a clemency hearing for an inmate scheduled to be executed at midweek. Eight years is the maximum delay between consideration dates allowed by board rules.
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The last time the state parole board commuted a death row inmate’s sentence was in July 2014.
