Clemency denied for convicted child killer Virgil Delano Presnell Jr.

ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) - The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency for convicted killer Virgil Delano Presnell, Jr.

Presnell is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. May 17 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

Presnell was convicted by a jury of four crimes committed in 1976 against two girls, ages eight and ten years old. He was convicted of kidnapping and murdering the younger child and kidnapping with bodily injury and raping the older child. The jury imposed the death sentence

The Superior Court of Cobb County issued the execution order for Presnell.

ORIGINAL STORY

The lawyer for a Georgia man scheduled to be executed next week says her client has significant cognitive impairments that likely contributed to his crimes and has suffered horrific abuse in prison.

She argues that means his life should be spared.

Virgil Delano Presnell Jr. killed an 8-year-old girl and raped her 10-year-old friend after abducting them as they walked home from school in Cobb County, just outside Atlanta, on May 4, 1976.

He is scheduled to be executed Tuesday.

The five-member parole board, which is the only authority in Georgia that can commute a death sentence, has scheduled a closed-door clemency hearing Monday to consider his case.