In the early morning hours of July 12, 1987, a quiet street in Milledgeville, Georgia, became the scene of a tragic discovery. Dorothy Hightower, a 41-year-old woman, was found shot to death in her home at 115 McKinley Street. Alongside her were her two daughters, 22-year-old Sandra Reaves and 19-year-old Evelyn Reaves, who had also been fatally shot. The grim scene was discovered by Dorothy's brother, Curtis Reaves, when he arrived at the residence around 3:00 a.m.
to pick up his young daughter who had been staying with the family. He found his sister and one of his nieces deceased, while his other niece, Evelyn, was still alive but gravely injured; she succumbed to her injuries two days later. A 3-year-old girl, the niece of the Hightowers, was also in the house but was physically unharmed.
Suspicion quickly fell upon Dorothy's husband, John Washington Hightower. Dorothy's car was missing from the home, and about 90 minutes after the bodies were discovered, law enforcement located and arrested Hightower while he was driving the vehicle. Inside the car, authorities found the murder weapon, a handgun, which was covered in flesh and blood. Hightower's clothes were also stained with blood.
During questioning, John Hightower confessed to the murders. He admitted to having marital problems and stated that in the hours leading up to the killings, he had been drinking and using cocaine. He detailed how he went to the home, hid a gun under a pillow in the bedroom he shared with his wife, and waited for everyone to fall asleep. At approximately 3:00 a.m., he retrieved the weapon and shot his wife and two stepdaughters in the head.
John Washington Hightower, a Black male, was charged with three counts of murder. In 1988, a jury convicted him on all counts and sentenced him to death. Following his conviction, Hightower spent years on death row, and his case went through numerous appeals. On June 26, 2007, John Washington Hightower was executed by lethal injection for the murders of his wife, Dorothy Hightower, and his stepdaughters, Evelyn and Sandra Reaves. Before his execution, he issued a final statement expressing remorse and apologizing to the Reaves family for the grief he had caused.
