Margaret “Maggie” Berry embraces her sons Andrew (left) and Will (right) in this photo taken after Berry earned her GED. Berry was killed in a robbery of convenience store where she worked in 1997. Geoffrey West, convicted of her murder, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on Sept. 25. (Courtesy Will Berry)
I was 11 years old in 1997 when Geoffrey West shot and killed my mother, Margaret Parrish Berry, while robbing the Attalla gas station where she worked. Mr. West was sentenced to death for killing my mother. His execution date is set for September 25. But I do not want the state of Alabama to kill him. That won’t bring my mother back; it will only add to the pain I have lived with since the night she was shot. I believe there is a better way.
My mother was the person I loved most in the world. Her absence, and the senseless way she died, has cast a long shadow over my life. Even so, the weeks since I learned that Gov. Ivey set an execution date for Mr. West have been some of the most unsettling I can recall. My dearest wish is to meet with Mr. West. Yet with only weeks left until his execution date, it’s not clear who has the power to make that happen or how to ask them directly…