On a spring day in Putnam, Georgia, the life of 39-year-old Pattie Diann Fugate, a White female, was brought to a violent and tragic end. On May 4, 1991, she was ambushed at her Lake Sinclair home by her ex-husband, Wallace Marvin Fugate, III. The couple had been married for two decades before a divorce that included a restraining order against him. Pattie and her 15-year-old son, Mark, returned home to discover that Wallace had broken into the residence and was lying in wait in the basement.
A terrifying sequence of events unfolded as Wallace, armed with a pistol, confronted his former wife. Despite their son's attempt to intervene with a rifle, which Wallace had disabled, the situation escalated. He dragged Pattie from the house, beating her with the butt of his gun as she fought back. The brutal assault continued outside, where he pistol-whipped her approximately 50 times before forcing her toward a van.
In a final, horrific act, witnessed by their son, Wallace shot Pattie in the forehead. After she fell to the ground, he fled the scene in the van.
Wallace Fugate turned himself in to the authorities on the same day as the murder. During his trial, he claimed the shooting was accidental, asserting that the gun discharged during a struggle. However, the testimony of his son, Mark, proved to be a crucial element for the prosecution. The jury took less than an hour to find Wallace Fugate guilty of murder, burglary, kidnapping with bodily injury, two counts of aggravated assault, and theft by taking a motor vehicle.
For the murder of his ex-wife, Wallace Marvin Fugate, III was sentenced to death. He also received lengthy sentences for the other charges. After years of appeals, his sentence was carried out, and he was executed by lethal injection on August 16, 2002. Before his execution, he made a final statement, expressing love for his son and criticizing the criminal justice system. In a tragic epilogue to this case, their son, Mark, who had witnessed his mother's murder, was himself killed in an unrelated incident five years later.
