Parole board denies clemency for condemned Houston County killer
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles deliberated until late Tuesday before denying clemency to condemned Houston County killer Travis Clinton Hittson.
Hittson, a 45-year-old Navy veteran, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson.
His attorneys requested a 90-day stay of execution "to permit full consideration of his application," as well as a commutation of the death sentence.
Hittson's representatives met with the board Tuesday morning to lay out a case for clemency, while those opposed -- including Houston County District Attorney George Hartwig -- addressed the board Tuesday afternoon.
"I basically answered the board's questions to the best of my ability and spoke from the heart, and I think I spoke on behalf of the DA's office and the victim and the victim's family and the people of Houston County," Hartwig said by phone. "I tried to give a voice to the victim."
In Georgia, only the parole board has the constitutional authority to commute a death sentence to life with the possibility of parole or to life without the possibility of parole. The clemency hearing was closed to the public.
In March 1993, Hittson, then 22, was sentenced to death for the slaying of 20-year-old Conway C. Utterbeck the previous year while the two were on military leave in Houston County. Another shipmate, Edward Paul Vollmer, also was charged with murder, but he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole as part of a plea bargain.
In a 33-page clemency petition, Hittson's attorneys argued that Vollmer orchestrated the crime and exercised "unnatural dominance and control" over Hittson, manipulating him into killing Utterbeck.
"The community of men who served alongside both Mr. Hittson and Conway Utterbeck in the Navy believe that Travis Hittson is deserving of mercy, as do others, including jurors who were charged with determining Mr. Hittson's punishment," the petition said.
Four jurors who voted for a death sentence have since written to the parole board and asked that Hittson be sentenced to life without parole, saying they believe that is the appropriate punishment. Life without parole was not a sentencing option in 1993 when Hittson was convicted of murder, theft by taking, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
His attorneys also said Hittson is "deeply remorseful" and his crime "was an extreme aberration" from the life he had lived before the murder.
Houston County Superior Court Chief Judge George F. Nunn issued the execution order Feb. 1. Hittson's direct and subsequent appeal proceedings have concluded.
According to an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals summary of the case, Hittson, Vollmer and Utterbeck were shipmates aboard the USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier that was based in Pensacola, Florida, in spring 1992. Vollmer was Hittson's lead petty officer.
On April 3, 1992, Vollmer invited Hittson and Utterbeck to come with him to his parents' Houston County home near Warner Robins for the weekend. The parents were out of town.
On the morning of April 5, Hittson and Vollmer returned to the home after having been out for several hours drinking. Utterbeck was asleep in a recliner in the living room.
Vollmer had convinced Hittson that Utterbeck had been plotting to kill them, and for that reason, they needed to kill him first. Vollmer got a handgun from his vehicle and he gave Hittson an aluminum bat.
Hittson hit a sleeping Utterbeck in the head with the bat. Utterbeck woke up, jumped out of the chair, and Hittson hit him a second time in the head.
Now on the floor, Utterbeck raised a hand to defend himself. But Hittson subdued him with a third blow with the bat and drug him into the kitchen, where Vollmer was waiting.
According to the summary, Utterbeck asked Hittson, "What did I ever do to you?"
Vollmer gave Hittson a .22-caliber pistol and stood on Utterbeck's hand to keep him from struggling. Utterbeck screamed and begged for his life. But Hittson shot him in the forehead, according to the summary.
The men stripped Utterbeck's body, took $62 out of his pockets and went to a nearby Waffle House to eat. They returned, dismembered the body and cleaned up the crime scene.
They buried his torso in a shallow grave in Houston County. They threw his clothing, his identification card and the gun's shell casings in a dumpster near Vollmer's parents' home. They buried Utterbeck's hands, head, feet and other body parts in a wooded area outside Pensacola, Florida.
To contact writer Becky Purser, call 256-9559, or find her on Twitter @becpurser.
This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 9:12 PM with the headline "Parole board denies clemency for condemned Houston County killer ."