Troy Leon Gregg
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Troy Leon Gregg (1953 – July 29, 1980) was the first condemned individual whose death sentence was upheld by the United States Supreme Court after the Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia invalidated all previously enacted death penalty laws in the United States. Gregg was convicted of having murdered Fred Edward Simmons and Bob Durwood Moore, who had given him and another man a ride when they were hitchhiking. The crime occurred on November 21, 1973.
In Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court held that the State of Georgia could constitutionally put Gregg to death.
But Gregg would not die in the electric chair. The night before his set date for execution, together with three other condemned murderers, Gregg escaped from Georgia State Prison in Reidsville in the first death row breakout in Georgia history. Dressed in home-made prison guard uniforms, complete with fake badges, the four had sawed through their cells' bars and then left in car parked in the visitors' parking lot by an aunt of one of them. Gregg was beaten to death later that night in a bar fight in North Carolina. The other escapees were captured three days later.[1]
