The Georgia Department of Corrections currently houses 38 death row inmates. Thirty-seven are male, one is female.
And one was sentenced in Coffee County.
Ashley Lyndol Jones, now 49, has been on Georgia’s death row since June 19, 1995, after he was convicted for the brutal murder of Keith Holland, 39, of Coffee County, on March 31, 1993. The events that led to Holland’s death actually began in Ware County on March 30, when Jones and an accomplice, Allen Bunner, and three others were riding around drinking in a stolen vehicle.
They had stolen four cases of beer from a convenience store; they had also stolen a vehicle. While they were driving around, the vehicle broke down. Jones and Bunner left the other three and stole a second vehicle, a Ford pickup, from Rudolph Melton of Ware County. As they drove around, they left Ware County and entered Coffee County.
Around 5 a.m., Bunner and Jones pulled into Holland’s driveway. Bunner knocked on the door and Holland’s wife answered. He said his truck was having battery trouble. She woke Holland and he went outside to take a look at the vehicle. His wife watched from a window inside the home. Holland leaned over the engine to investigate and Jones hit him in the back of the head with a hammer. Holland’s wife screamed and began banging on the window. Jones responded by continuing to hit Holland with the hammer. Then Jones and Bunner left in Holland’s truck. Holland’s wife called EMS and they arrived quickly but there was nothing that could be done.
After the murder, the two left Georgia, pawned a few items in the truck, then burned the truck in some woods near a welcome station in North Florida. They were arrested at the welcome station and brought back to Georgia.
Jones was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for killing Holland in 1995 in Coffee County. Bunner was convicted for his role in the murder in 1994 in Ware County. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and began serving the sentence in December of the same year.
Both remain in prison. No execution date for Jones has been set. The last person executed in Georgia was double murderer Donnie Lance, who was put to death on January 29, 2020.
The Georgia Department of Corrections and www.murderpedia.com contributed to this story.