William Berry’s life these past few weeks has been defined by two unshakable certainties: His mother was killed in Alabama in 1997, turning his world upside down when he was 11, and the man responsible does not deserve to die for what he did.
At one time, Mr. Berry said, condemning his mother’s killer, Geoffrey West, had a certain logic. When Mr. Berry was 13, with the encouragement of prosecutors, he spoke up during the trial in favor of the death penalty.
But over the years, he said, the lessons of a hard life, the baggage of his own mistakes and what he believed was a divine response to years of prayer pushed him toward forgiveness. He didn’t share that realization with many people. This was about finding his own peace.
Then, the state of Alabama scheduled the execution: Sept. 25 at 6 p.m. He found out about it after his wife saw a report from a local TV station.
Holding onto his feelings was no longer enough, Mr. Berry said. He wanted Mr. West to know, and hoped that speaking up about his willingness to forgive his mother’s killer might persuade state officials to spare Mr. West’s life.
Mr. Berry has sprung into action, pushing himself far beyond his comfort zone. He has written letters to the governor and other officials. He went to a rally at the State Capitol. He has been wary of journalists and their motives, yet he has talked to them anyway.
He learned that officials in Alabama had helped justify carrying out executions by invoking the pursuit of justice and the hope for closure for those most profoundly affected. But maybe it would make a difference, Mr. Berry figured, if they heard how strongly he believed that killing Mr. West would bring neither justice nor closure.
“This is only going to cause more pain,” Mr. Berry said of the looming execution on Thursday. “It was a terrible thing he did — terrible thing. It does not give the state the right to kill this guy.”
State officials have remained firm in their support of the death penalty. Last year, Alabama became the first state to use nitrogen hypoxia, which suffocates the condemned prisoner, as a method of execution.
Those with the power to intervene — namely, Gov. Kay Ivey — maintain that some crimes are severe enough to merit capital punishment, and that the murder of Margaret Parrish Berry, Mr. Berry’s mother, is one of them.
“This is to deter future murders, to prevent the murderer from ever killing again, and to express society’s outrage at such a terrible crime,” Ms. Ivey, a Republican, wrote to Mr. Berry in a letter. Carrying out executions, she added, “is my solemn duty.”
She acknowledged a case in February where she commuted an inmate’s death sentence to life without parole because of doubts over the man’s guilt. But that reasoning did not apply in this case. “There seems to be no question here,” she wrote in the letter, “that Mr. West in fact murdered your mother.”
On March 28, 1997, Margaret Berry was working behind the counter at Harold’s Chevron in the small town of Attalla, Ala., when Mr. West charged in, demanding money. Ms. Berry, 33, complied. She gave him $250 from the cookie tin where the store’s earnings were stashed. Mr. West, who was 21 at the time, shot her in the back of the head. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999.
The Alabama attorney general’s office said in a statement that Mr. West had exhausted his appeals and that the outcome of the trial had withstood scrutiny. “He has been on death row for 26 years, and his sentence is due,” the statement said.
Mr. Berry is now 40, works as a roofer and lives in Alexandria, an unincorporated community in the northeastern part of the state. With his wife, he has helped raise a blended family of two boys and two girls, and he has two grandchildren.
There is no ignoring the weight he has carried from his mother’s killing, the pain that has endured. “It altered the path of his life, and now, you can see the light — that he’s made it to the light,” his wife, Courtney Berry, said. “But at first, he drove down a really dark road and he was all alone.”
And not just emotionally, she added. Ms. Berry met her husband when she was 17 and he was 15. He lived on his own. He paid his own bills.
He blamed Mr. West for that, sure. But he credited his faith with reshaping his perspective. He came to see Mr. West less as a monster than as a troubled young man on a bad path, which sounded awfully familiar. Mr. Berry thought about his mother too, how she was a forgiving soul and had taken back her husband several times.
“She taught us that love has no conditions,” Mr. Berry said. “And to this day, my dad lives on my property. That’s what my mother would want us to do.”
After he learned about the imminent execution, he wrote to Mr. West, wanting to express his feelings and asking to visit Mr. West in prison.
“I want to tell him I love him,” Mr. Berry said, “and everything is in the Lord’s hands, and the Lord will have mercy because he is forgiven.”
The meeting was denied by prison officials, who cited rules that specifically preclude the family members of victims from meeting with a death row inmate so soon before an execution.
As the execution has approached, and the chances of a meeting have diminished, Mr. Berry has become more vocal. He wrote an essay for The Alabama Reflector, a nonprofit news organization covering the state. The Associated Press and Tread, a newsletter in Alabama producing original journalism, wrote stories about him and his efforts.
The experience of trying to spare Mr. West’s life has picked at scabbed over wounds and brought fresh agony to Mr. Berry. “It’s almost like having to watch him lose his mother all over again,” his wife said. “It’s like his voice doesn’t matter.”
He said he found it deeply frustrated that attending the execution and watching Mr. West die would be easier than speaking with him beforehand. (Mr. Berry does not plan to attend.)
Still, he was certain about something else. His mother’s brutal killing, as he saw it, was part of God’s design for his life, even if he did not understand it — and he didn’t have to. “It was a plan from God to make me the man I am today,” he said. Mr. West’s fate was no different.
“I’m at peace, I’ve been at peace,” Mr. Berry said. And even with the recent turmoil, he added, “I’m at peace again. I know what I’m doing is right.”
But unlike before, the peace was not his alone. One of Mr. West’s final wishes is that a letter from Mr. Berry be placed in his coffin. He said he wanted those words of forgiveness to always be with him.
Rick Rojas is the Atlanta bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the South.
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