Kelly Gissendaner Execution Crime + Last Words + Last Meal | Georgia Death Row Inmate | USA
The following will be a statement made by Kelly Renee Gizender, GDC 357507, on Tuesday, September 29th at approximately 5:16 p.m. I just want my kids to know that love still beats out hate. And I want the Giz Goner family to know that I’m sorry. And because of me, a good man lost his life. And I want to tell my kids I love them so much and I’m so proud of them.
This concludes the statement made by Kelly Renee Goner. >> She was very strong and she was very uh assured in her in whatever the process was going to be. And she she she handled herself with poise that was beyond belief. >> Gizer’s attorney was not the only ones fighting on her behalf. her grown children begged a parole board to commute her sentenced to life in prison.
>> She’s so supportive of me. I can talk to her um about anything, any troubles I have or anything that I want to celebrate and I know that she’s my biggest cheerleader. My brothers and I really want my mom to live. She is all that we have left. >> Just after midnight, Kelly Renee Jissainer stood in the execution chamber crying, trembling, and singing Amazing Grace.
The song echoed through the prison walls as she took shallow breaths between verses. She wasn’t alone. Guards, chaplain, and two witnesses from the victim’s family stood behind a pane of glass, watching. Tell my children I love them. Tell the Dainer family I’m so sorry, she said, voice clear despite the tears. I went out singing Amazing Grace.
At 12:21 a.m. on September 30th, 2015, Kelly was pronounced dead by lethal injection. She became the first woman executed in Georgia in 70 years. But this story didn’t start in a prison death chamber. It started with a love affair, a $15,000 life insurance policy, and a woman who believed murder was easier than divorce.
To understand how Kelly Jender ended up here, strapped to a gurnie, sobbing out of him, we have to go back to the winter of 1997 to a broken marriage and a chilling plan whispered over late night phone calls. Welcome to our channel and thank you for being here. This is True Crime Matter, where we bring you real stories from death row, raw, emotional, and unfiltered.
If you’re passionate about justice and true crime, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Before Kelly Jissainer ever saw the inside of a prison cell, she was a mother of three, struggling to keep her life from falling apart. Her days were a chaotic blend of broken relationships, financial stress, and emotional exhaustion.
She had three children from three different men, and her marriage to Douglas Jissender, the once filled with hope, was barely holding on. Kelly and Douglas had history. They married, divorced, then remarried, each time trying to patch up something that never truly healed. Douglas was patient, steady, a mechanic who worked long hours and did his best to hold the family together.
He raised all three of Kelly’s children, even those that weren’t biologically his. To neighbors, he was the quiet hero. But inside that house, something darker was growing. While Douglas focused on work and providing stability, Kelly was living a double life. She had fallen hard for another man. Greg Owen, a younger boyfriend with a rough edge and just enough danger to thrill her.
Their affair wasn’t secret for long. Kelly openly talked about how she felt trapped in her marriage. She wanted out, but not through a messy divorce. Divorce meant giving things up. The house, the car, the stability, maybe even custody. But if Douglas were dead, then Kelly wouldn’t lose anything. She’d gain a $15,000 life insurance policy, the house in her name, and a clean break with no court battles.
And that idea, it didn’t stay a fantasy for long. At first, Greg was hesitant. Kill a man. It sounded insane, but Kelly kept pushing. Soft at first, then firmer. She brought it up again and again. She cried. She promised it would be worth it. Eventually, she broke him down. By early February 1997, the plan was no longer just talk. It was a countdown.
It was a bone cold Friday in late February 1997 when everything Kelly Jendiner had plotted finally began to unfold. The kind of night when the wind stings your face and silence feels heavy. But for Kelly, this wasn’t a night to reflect. It was the night she chose to destroy a man.
She sat behind the wheel of her car outside the home she once shared with Douglas Gissender, her husband in name only. In the passenger seat was Gregory Owen, the man she’d been secretly involved with. He wasn’t a killer by nature. But that night, he was her weapon. Kelly didn’t beg. She didn’t plead. She handed Greg a steel batten and a hunting knife with the calmness of someone handing over a grocery list.
Her eyes were steady, her voice low. There was no turning back. And just like that, she drove off into the night, not in fear, but to lay the foundation of her alibi. Drinks, friends, loud music, smiles for anyone watching. While she laughed under bar lights, Greg moved in the dark. He waited inside the house, crouched in silence, heart pounding in his chest.
Hours passed until Douglas finally walked through the door, tired from work, unaware his life was about to end. Greg moved quick, knife drawn, no shouting, just one order. Get in the car and drive. They headed out of town into the back roads of Gwynette County. No homes, no headlights, just trees that seemed to stretch forever.
When Greg told him to stop, Douglas obeyed. There, in a remote clearing far from help, he was marched into the woods and told to kneel. The violence that followed was horrific. First the batton, then the knife. Over and over, Douglas tried to scream, but the cold swallowed the sound. He fell to the earth with blood in his mouth and betrayal in his eyes.
Following Kelly’s instructions, Greg stripped Douglas of his watch and wedding ring, trying to stage it like a robbery, but even in the dark, it didn’t look random. It looked personal. Later, Kelly arrived near the scene like it was just another errand. No trembling, no shock.
Her first words, “Is it done?” Greg nodded. She didn’t cry. She didn’t pray. Together, they torched Douglas’s car with kerosene and vanished down the dirt road, leaving behind nothing but fire, smoke, and silence. By sunrise, Douglas was nowhere to be found. But Kelly was already laying her foundation. She called police with a steady voice, claiming her husband had stepped out the night before to help a friend fix a car, but hadn’t returned.
No real fear in her tone, no cracks in her composure, just a concerned wife delivering a clean, practiced line. At first, it didn’t raise alarms. Grown men go missing all the time. Most come back after a night out or a personal crisis. Officers ran the standard checks, local hospitals, traffic reports, known contacts. Nothing came back. Douglas wasn’t in a wreck.
No John does matching his description. No signs of a scuffle or crime scene. But something felt wrong. Douglas was reliable. He wasn’t a man who vanished on a whim. He had a steady job, was trying to fix his shaky marriage, and had no pattern of walking away from responsibility. His habits were predictable. His life structured.
The silence didn’t fit. Kelly kept up her performance, smiling through interviews. squeezing out tears when necessary, but she never mentioned Greg Owen. Not once. No one knew she was still entangled with him. That secret, it wouldn’t stay buried for long. Then came the discovery that changed everything.
A park ranger making routine rounds spotted a torched vehicle deep in a wooded area. It was gutted. Just steel and ashes. No plates, no ID, just an eerie scorched shell. Detectives ran the vehicle identification number. It was Douglas’s car. Still no body, no DNA, just more smoke, more shadows. But now it was clear this wasn’t a disappearance.
It was something far darker. And someone was hiding something big. Detectives shifted gears. They stopped asking where Douglas went and started asking who wanted him gone. And that trail led straight back to Kelly. Her digital footprint told a different story. Her calls, her texts, her movements, all of it pointed to a connection she hadn’t disclosed.
A man named Greg Owen, a man she had reason to hide. When confronted, Kelly downplayed it. said she was ashamed, said it wasn’t serious, but her phone records disagreed. Dozens of calls, late night messages, overlapping timelines. The relationship wasn’t over. It had just gone underground. Police reached out to Greg. He claimed he was with a friend that night, Ricky Barrett.
But when they circled back and pushed Ricky for the truth, the crack showed. Ricky confessed Greg left around 900 p.m. and didn’t come back till morning. Worse, Greg begged him to lie. That was the break they needed. Everything accelerated. Investigators laid out the timeline, the tech data, the lies, and Greg buckled. No lawyer, no denial, just the truth.
Greg told them Kelly was the mastermind. She never left him. The reunion with Douglas was just bait. a setup to keep the house and cash in the life insurance. Kelly had whispered about it for weeks. She picked the knight. She supplied the weapon. She gave the go. Greg just followed through. When they arrested Kelly, she didn’t fight.
She didn’t plead. Her first call from jail wasn’t to an attorney. It was to a friend. And during that call, she slipped. She admitted to planning it. Later that day, her tone shifted. Now she claimed she was the victim, that Greg tricked her, that she never wanted anyone dead. But the timeline was set, the damage was done, and Kelly Renee had just stepped into the spotlight of a case that would haunt George’s history forever.
While locked in a cell awaiting trial, Kelly Jinder wasn’t writing to her kids or begging God for mercy. Instead, she was writing to an old friend, someone she thought might lie for her on the stand. In the same breath, she floated ideas to silence witnesses. Rob them, scare them, hurt them if needed. Her tone was calm, almost casual, as if orchestrating violence came as naturally as making a grocery list.
Investigators had heard enough. Whatever mask she wore as a grieving widow had slipped completely. This wasn’t confusion. This was cold-blooded control. When prosecutors offered her a deal, life in prison, no death penalty, Kelly refused. She was confident, too confident. She thought she could beat the system, charm a jury, rewrite the truth.
Greg Owen, however, saw it differently. Faced with the same option, he took the plea. In exchange for life without parole, he agreed to testify against her. When he walked into the courtroom, you could feel the air shift. Pale and broken, Greg sat before a packed gallery and told the truth. She planned it all.
Every step, she told me what to do, when to do it. When I hesitated, she told me we were doing it for us, for love, for the money, for our future. On the other side of the room sat Douglas Jender’s family, his mother, his sister, his children. All of them shattered. All of them staring at the woman who once tucked their son into bed and kissed their father good night.
Now on trial for orchestrating his execution. Kelly sat stiff, emotionless, dressed sharp, hair done. Not a single crack in her composure. Prosecutors tore through the timeline. They showed how Kelly had manipulated both men, Douglas and Greg. how she had moved back in with Douglas, taken smiling family photos, cooked dinners, all while planning his death behind his back.
They revealed the secret life insurance policy. $250,000. Forged signature. Douglas had no idea. Her jail house letters sealed it. They weren’t love notes. They were threats, schemes, proof of intent. Kelly’s lawyers tried to flip the script, blaming Greg, calling him unstable, suggesting she was scared of him, but it fell flat, especially after the jury listened to her jail phone calls and saw how unfazed she looked, even as the mountain of evidence grew taller by the hour. 5 hours, that’s all it took.
Guilty, firstdegree murder. premeditated, calculated, heartless. And then came the sentence, “Death.” Kelly didn’t flinch. No tears, no gasp, just an icy stare forward like the courtroom didn’t matter. Outside, Douglas’s sister told the truth the world needed to hear. She thought she could outsmart all of us, that she could kill him and dance around justice. But not today. Not ever.
Greg Owen went to prison for the rest of his life. No parole, no escape, just the silence of a deal that saved him from death, but not from guilt. As for Kelly, death row became her new world. Years before she ever plotted a murder, Kelly Jendainer was already fighting battles no one could see. Born Kelly Brookshshire in Georgia in 1968, her life began in the shadow of dysfunction.
She grew up in a chaotic household, bouncing between instability and survival. Her father was absent. Her mother struggled to provide structure. By the time Kelly reached her teens, she was already numbing her pain with rebellion, drinking, partying, and skipping school. The streets gave her more attention than her home ever did.
At 15, she was pregnant. By 17, she had two children. But instead of support, she found more chaos. Bouncing between toxic relationships and broken dreams. Her choices weren’t just reckless. They were cries for help. Then came Douglas Jissender. He offered a different kind of life, stable, structured, spiritual.
They married in 1989. But even that stability couldn’t tame the chaos inside Kelly. She cheated, left, came back, repeated the cycle, and in the late 90s, when the relationship reached its breaking point, she met Greg Owen, the man she’d later convinced to kill her husband. Kelly’s childhood never justified her choices.
But it gave context to a woman shaped by pain, driven by fear, and constantly chasing a version of love that kept slipping away. Her road to death road didn’t begin with a murder. It began with a girl trying to survive in a world that never gave her peace. Death Row became her new world alone.
No other women, just time, concrete, and a slow unraveling of the pride that once made her believe she could win. After the guilty verdict, Kelly Jissainer was transferred to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, the same place that houses the state’s execution chamber. But Kelly wasn’t just another inmate. She was the only woman on George’s death row.
There were no other women to talk to, no one else facing what she faced. Her cell was in a separate unit, isolated, quiet, and cold. For the next 18 years, that would be her world. Nearly two decades of silence, prayer, and the ticking clock of the appeal system. She tried to fight it. Her lawyers filed appeal after appeal. First in the Georgia Supreme Court, then federal court, they argued that Kelly didn’t physically commit the murder, that it was Greg Owen who stabbed Douglas to death, that Kelly was a mother, a Christian, a changed woman,
but the courts weren’t moved, the evidence was overwhelming, her letters, her manipulation, her refusal to take a plea, the life insurance, the lies. Even the US Supreme Court was asked to intervene. They declined. While Greg served his life sentence quietly, Kelly began crafting a different image. Behind bars, she enrolled in theological studies, started ministering to other inmates, and wrote long emotional letters of remorse to her children.
Some believed she had changed. She spoke often of grace, redemption, and forgiveness. She even sang hymns with the prison chaplain. But others saw through it. Douglas’s family never forgave her. They didn’t want him. They wanted justice. Kelly’s legal team tried one last desperate move highlighting her transformation.
Over 60,000 people signed petitions to spare her life. Even Pope Francis sent a letter urging clemency. It was emotional. It was historic. But it wasn’t enough. The state reviewed her case one final time in 2015. After 18 long years, her execution date was set. No more appeals, no more delays. It was time. September 29th, 2015. It was her last sunrise.
After 18 years on death row, Kelly Renee Jissainer was out of appeals, out of time. That morning, prison staff quietly informed her the execution would proceed at 7:00 p.m. No more delays. Kelly was moved from her cell to the death watch area, just feet away from the execution chamber at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison.
The mood was sterile, calm, but the way to finality hung in the air. She was allowed visitors. Her three children came. They cried, hugged, prayed. For hours she sat with her pastor, reading scripture, singing hymns, and trying to keep her voice steady. But the closer the hour came, the quieter she became. She was offered her last meal.
Cheese dipped with chips, Texas toast, cornbread, buttermilk pie, and a Sprite. She ate it slowly. Some of it she left untouched. Her appetite had faded. As the sun dipped below the Georgia pines, guards walked her to the chamber. She was strapped down on the gurnie, a white sheet pulled across her body. For lines were inserted.
Witnesses sat just feet away. Reporters, attorneys, family. She was asked if she had any final words. Kelly looked up at the glass and spoke calmly. Kelly cried, prayed, sang Amazing Grace, and said, “And I love you, Sally. And I love you, Susan. You let my kids know I went out singing Amazing Grace. And tell the Jend Dainer family, I am so sorry.
That amazing man lost his life because of me. And if I could take it back, if this would change it, I would have done it a long time ago. But it’s not. And I just hope they can find peace. And I hope they find some happiness. God bless you. At 12:21 a.m., after several hours of legal delays, the lethal injection began to flow.
Kelly sang Amazing Grace softly as the drugs enter her veins. Her voice slowed, then stopped. At 12:29 a.m., Kelly Jender was pronounced dead. She was 47 years old. The only woman executed in Georgia in more than 70 years. A mastermind, not the killer. But the law saw no difference.
