D.A. seeks death penalty

Published 8:00 am Friday, August 8, 2014

The Alapaha Judicial Circuit district attorney intends to seek the death penalty for the man charged in killing a woman and her 15-month-old child in 2013 in this Cook County town.

On May 3, 2013, Francis Lisa Hall, 33, and Jersi Rayne Hall, 15 months, were found dead in a home on Barneyville Road in Sparks, according to reports.

Ashley Justin “Bo” Rutland of Lenox was arrested on vehicle theft charges the same day and then charged with two counts of murder, two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated battery and one count of child molestation, said Sherry Lang, Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s director of public affairs.

On Thursday, Alapaha District Attorney Dick Perryman issued a statement in which he announced the filing of a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Rutland “due to the murders being so outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman that it involved depravity of the mind.”

Both victims were struck with a baseball bat, causing skull fractures, according to Perryman’s statement. Rutland is in the Cook County Jail awaiting trial and has been unable to make his $1.6 million bond, said Perryman.