Today is Saturday, June 20, 2020.

On this day in 2019, 42-year-old Marion Wilson Jr. was executed by lethal injection. He was the

1500th person to be executed in the United States since the return of the death

penalty in 1976.

Welcome to today in true crime, a parcast original. Due to the graphic nature of

today's crimes, listener discretion is advised. Extreme caution is advised for

listeners under 13. Today we're covering the death of Marion Wilson Jr.

the 1500th person to be executed in the modern era of America's death penalty.

Let's go back to Georgia diagnostic and classification prison on the morning of June 20th, 2019. 19. Marion Wilson Jr. awoke in his cell on death row, as he had done every morning for the past 22 years. But he didn't belong

there. At least that's what he claimed. From the day in 1996 when Wilson was arrested in connection with the murder of Donovan Parks, he denied

that he'd been the one to take Parks life.

However, there was no denying that Wilson had made some very poor decisions.

For example, he'd chosen to join the local Folk Nation gang, a decision which led to him

sitting in the backseat of Park's car

while his fellow gang member Robert Butts

road shotgun.

None of those facts were in question.

It was what happened next that Wilson would contest until his dying day.

By Wilson's account, Butts was the one who ordered Parks

to step out of his own car.

Butts was the one who forced Parks to lie face down on the road and Butts was the

one who pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and fired it into the back of Park's skull.

...