ATLANTA – A Milledgeville, Georgia man who brutally murdered two people but has found a sense of purpose behind bars will be executed Thursday night unless his request for clemency is granted. 

Josh Bishop was 19 when he and another man, Mark Braxley, bludgeoned 44-year-old Leverett Morrison to death with a closet rod. The murder happened as the pair tried to steal Morrison’s Jeep after a night of drinking and drug use in 1994. 

Bishop has also admitted his role in the murder of another man, Ricky Willis, 36, two weeks earlier. In that case, Bishop’s attorneys say Braxley cut Willis’ throat after Bishop violently beat him.

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles is deciding whether Bishop, now 41, should spend life in prison rather than die by lethal injection, as scheduled.

Board members heard arguments for and against Bishop’s request during a closed-door meeting in Atlanta on Wednesday. A decision is expected Thursday. 

The Associated Press also reported Wednesday that a Butts County Superior Court judge denied a challenge filed by Bishop’s attorneys, who have appealed to the state’s Supreme Court.

“He’s a little scared, but he expressed to me that he had a sense of peace,” one of Bishop’s attorneys, Wilson DuBose, told reporters.

His lawyers – including a former sixth-grade classmate, Sarah Gerwig-Moore, who is now an associate professor at Mercer Law School – said the board should consider his “horrific” upbringing and his “deep and immediate” remorse for his actions.

DuBose also noted a “great disparity” in the sentences for Bishop and Braxley, who received a life sentence and is currently eligible for parole.

It was Braxley who directed Bishop to carry out some of the violence, which took place in Braxley’s mobile home, according to Bishop’s attorneys, who emphasized that Braxley is nearly twice Bishop’s age.

Bishop would have pleaded guilty and avoided trial – just as Braxley did – had he been given the chance, his attorneys said.  

Prosecutors and investigators presented a different picture of Bishop to the board, fingering him as the instigator of both murders.

Sheriffs from both Baldwin and Putnam counties, as well as the current and former prosecutors, said they detailed for the board the brutality of the murders.

Bill Massee, sheriff of Baldwin County, said images from the crime scene are still vivid in his memory 22 years later.

“It’s as violent a homicide – both of them – as we’ve ever worked,” he told reporters after the hearing.

Sheriffs and prosecutors acknowledged that Bishop owned up to his involvement – when he had no other choice.

“Bishop didn’t confess until confronted with the overwhelming evidence of his guilt that he knew we had,” said Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, who was Massee’s deputy chief at the time.

Bishop’s attorneys, however, tried to convince board members that his “shocking” living conditions as a child help explain his chaotic state of mind when he committed the murders.

Bishop lived in as many as 16 different homes – including a group home and several foster homes – over the course of a decade. When he didn’t have shelter, he lived under a bridge.

He witnessed the abuse of his mother – and was abused himself – by her boyfriends.

Sills, the sheriff, said the focus on Bishop’s difficult upbringing makes him think of one of his victims, Ricky Willis, a former patient at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville.

“I don’t know what kind of childhood (Willis) had, but he had no chances whatsoever, and when the state abandoned him, they made him the prey of people like Josh Bishop,” Sills said.

But Bishop isn’t the same person he was when Sills investigated him two decades ago, his attorney said.

He has since become deeply religious and is now a positive influence on fellow inmates and others beyond the prison walls.

“The prolonging of his life would serve a far greater purpose than would the taking of it,” his attorneys wrote in his petition for clemency.

Some family members of his victims – and even seven of 12 jurors who originally elected to sentence him to death – say they believe he should live out the rest of his life in prison.

Several jurors said they were confused during his sentencing and believed that a unanimous decision was required, according to Bishop’s petition. Video testimony from one juror was played during Wednesday’s hearing, DuBose said. 

But others, including the children of Leverett Morrison, believe the jury got it right the first time.

Two of Morrison’s children told the board that Bishop deserved to die for killing their father.

His execution is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. For his last meal, Bishop requested a barbecue sandwich, Brunswick stew, potato chips, coleslaw, lemonade and purple candy.

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.