ack Edward Alderman was born on May 29, 1951, in Garden City, Georgia, a town situated near Savannah. Little is publicly documented about Alderman’s early life before his arrest. He was married to Barbara Jean Alderman (née Blase), and by all outward appearances, the couple led an ordinary domestic life.

On June 14, 1975, he was convicted for his role in the murder of his wife, Barbara Jean Alderman. She was beaten with a crescent wrench, choked, and her body was dumped into a creek in Rincon, Georgia, near her mother’s home. Prosecutors argued that Alderman planned the murder to collect $20,000 from her life insurance policy, which was provided by her employer, the City of Savannah.

John Brown, Alderman’s co-defendant and a known drug addict, initially confessed to the crime but later implicated Alderman. Brown claimed they committed the murder together and that Alderman had promised to pay him. Despite the lack of forensic evidence, Alderman was convicted based on Brown’s testimony alone.

Alderman maintained his innocence, refusing plea deals that could have spared his life because they required him to admit guilt. On April 1, 1985, during a new sentencing trial, he was again sentenced to death. He remained on death row at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia.

On October 19, 2007, his execution was temporarily stayed while the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of lethal injection. Meanwhile, legal organizations in Europe, including the Law Society, the Bar Council, and the charity Reprieve, campaigned for clemency, calling Alderman’s prolonged incarceration a "gross injustice." He was represented pro bono by the London law firm Clifford Chance.

Despite these efforts, Alderman was executed by lethal injection on September 16, 2008. He was pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. EDT at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison.