Leonard Drane was sentenced to death by the State of Georgia for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Leonard Drane and his roommate David Robert Willis met the victim outside of a liquor store and she asked the men for crack cocaine. The three of them would travel to a nearby lake where the woman was sexually assaulted, shot in the head and had her throat slit. Leonard Drane would blame David Robert Willis for the murder however it would be Drane who was sentenced to death and David Willis would receive a life sentence
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Leonard Drane 2021 Information
YOB: 1959
RACE: WHITE
GENDER: MALE
HEIGHT: 5’09”
WEIGHT: 160
EYE COLOR: BLUE
HAIR COLOR: BROWN
MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: GA DIAG CLASS PRISON
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: DEATH
Leonard Drane More News
A jury convicted Leonard Drane of malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated battery, and imposed a death sentence for the malice murder. The evidence adduced at trial showed that Leonard Drane and co-indictee David Willis picked up Renee Blackmon on June 13, 1990, and drove her to a secluded road. Ms. Blackmon’s body was found in a lake on July 1, 1990. She had been shot point-blank in the head with a shotgun and her throat had been cut at least six times. She was tied to a brake drum with a rope. After his arrest, Drane claimed that Willis had sex with the victim and shot her with a shotgun, and then cut her throat because she was still breathing. Leonard Drane said he did not know Willis was going to kill the victim and he did not participate in her killing. However, he admitted helping Willis dispose of the body, hide the gun, wash Willis’s truck, and burn their clothes; and that he continued to live with Willis for three weeks until their arrest. He claimed he did so because he was afraid of Willis.
At trial, a witness testified that Leonard Drane told her prior to his arrest that he and Willis “picked this [black] girl up at the Huddle House in Elberton, Georgia, and that it would be the last ride she’d ever take.” 1 He further said he “[had sex with] her so bad that she’d never have any more babies” and that he and Willis threw her in the lake. He said the only mistake he made was to put one block on her instead of two (the body had just been discovered). Another witness testified that Drane told him he cut the victim’s throat because she was still alive after Willis shot her. On the night of the murder, after Willis and Leonard Drane had disposed of the victim’s body, they went to a bar and met some women. They went with the women to a trailer, where they drank beer and made comments about hating blacks. One of the women noticed that the men, who were not wearing shirts, had scratches on their chests. In the penalty phase, one of the women testified that Drane forced her to orally sodomize him at knife point that same night.