On March 26, 1984, a brutal killing took place in Georgia involving 28-year-old attorney George Grant Crooks and 23-year-old Robert Dale Conklin, a McDonald’s manager who was living in the state while on parole for earlier robbery and burglary convictions.
The two men had met at a highway rest stop and soon became romantically involved. Their relationship would ultimately end in a violent murder, an investigation involving dismemberment, a capital murder conviction, and, more than two decades later, Conklin’s execution.
A Meeting That Turned Into a Relationship
George Grant Crooks had graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law. At the time he met Conklin, Crooks was working with a law firm in Marietta and had also served as an aide to former Atlanta Congressman Elliott H. Levitas.
Conklin, originally from Illinois, was 23 years old and on parole. He had previously served three years of a six-year sentence related to armed robbery and burglary.
After meeting at a highway rest area, the two developed a relationship.
On March 26, 1984, Crooks went to Conklin’s apartment in Atlanta. The men spent time together, smoked marijuana, and became intimate. Crooks also took his prescribed codeine medication before staying the night.
What happened afterward became the central question of the murder investigation.
Crooks Is Killed
According to prosecutors, Conklin intentionally killed Crooks inside the apartment. Investigators concluded that Crooks had been stabbed with a screwdriver.
After the killing, Conklin attempted to hide what had happened.
He obtained cleaning products and tools and began trying to remove evidence from the apartment. He reportedly moved Crooks’s body into the bathroom and used the toilet to allow blood to drain away.
He then cut the body into pieces using knives, including a steak knife. The remains were placed inside several garbage bags and taken to the dumpster outside the apartment.
Crooks’s personal belongings were also discarded.
Afterward, Conklin left Atlanta and traveled to Miami, Florida.
A Gruesome Discovery
Crooks was reported missing on March 27, the day after he was killed.
Family members and friends had been unable to reach him. His father also discovered that Crooks’s apartment was empty and that his car was gone.
The following day, March 28, a maintenance worker was collecting aluminum cans from a dumpster near Conklin’s apartment when he discovered garbage bags containing human remains.
Police were called to the scene.
Investigators recovered body parts along with knives, bloodstained bedding, screwdrivers, rope, Crooks’s wallet, credit cards, and other documents.
The evidence quickly pointed investigators toward the apartment and its occupant.
What the Autopsy Revealed
Fulton County medical examiner Dr. Saleh Zaki examined the recovered remains.
The examination showed that Crooks had suffered numerous injuries before his death. Eight stab wounds were found on the right side of his neck. Another wound near the left ear penetrated the ear canal and extended toward the mastoid region.
Additional injuries were found around the head and neck that were consistent with blunt-force trauma.
There were also two further stab wounds to the lower right side of the neck. One of those wounds penetrated the left lung.
Dr. Zaki concluded that Crooks died from stab wounds to the chest and neck, while the blunt-force injuries to the head and neck also contributed to his death.
Police Identify Their Suspect
Investigators soon connected Conklin to the crime.
Among the material recovered from the dumpster was a card containing the name of Conklin’s parole officer. This provided investigators with an important lead.
Conklin had already fled Georgia and was considered a wanted suspect.
A Fulton County grand jury later indicted him for the murder and dismemberment of Crooks on April 3, 1984.
Conklin remained away from Georgia for a short time. After returning from Florida on April 8, he was arrested at a restaurant near his apartment.
He was subsequently appointed a public defender.
The Defense Claims Self-Defense
At trial, Conklin did not accept the prosecution’s version of the killing.
He claimed that Crooks had attacked him and attempted to sexually assault him. According to Conklin, he reacted in self-defense and did not intend to kill Crooks.
He also explained the later dismemberment by saying that he was afraid the incident would cause his parole to be revoked if authorities discovered what had happened.
The defense therefore argued that the killing should be viewed as an act of self-defense rather than intentional murder.
Prosecutors strongly disagreed.
They argued that Conklin had deliberately killed Crooks and suggested that Crooks had been attacked while asleep. They also presented the circumstances surrounding the disposal of the body as evidence of the seriousness of the crime.
The Murder Conviction
Conklin’s trial took place before a Fulton County Superior Court jury.
On June 15, 1984, after less than an hour of deliberation, the 12-member jury found him guilty of murder.
The case then moved into the sentencing phase.
Prosecutors argued that the violence of the killing and the subsequent dismemberment demonstrated an extreme level of brutality. They urged the jury to impose the death penalty.
The defense countered that the dismemberment occurred after the killing and was an attempt to conceal the crime rather than evidence that Conklin deserved to die.
On June 16, 1984, after several hours of deliberation over two days, the jury recommended that Conklin receive a death sentence.
Years of Appeals
Conklin continued to challenge his conviction and death sentence.
In January 1985, he appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, again arguing that the killing had resulted from self-defense.
That appeal was rejected in June 1985.
Another appeal reached the U.S. Supreme Court later that year, but it was also unsuccessful.
Nearly two decades later, Conklin continued seeking relief. In 2004, he made another attempt to have his death sentence overturned, but the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal.
By then, he had spent roughly two decades on Georgia’s death row.
Life Behind Bars
During his years in prison, Conklin attended church services and pursued his education.
He eventually completed a Bachelor of Arts program through Western Illinois University while incarcerated.
Despite the lengthy appeals process, his death sentence remained in place.
In June 2005, Georgia authorities formally issued a death warrant scheduling his execution.
Conklin continued seeking a stay of execution, arguing that his case had not received proper due process. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to postpone the execution.
The Georgia Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court also rejected requests to stop it.
Final Plea for Clemency
Conklin made one final effort to avoid execution by asking Georgia’s State Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The request was denied.
On July 12, 2005, only hours before the scheduled execution, the parole board confirmed that Conklin would not receive clemency.
After more than 21 years of legal proceedings, there would be no further delay.
The Execution
On the evening of July 12, 2005, Robert Dale Conklin was executed by lethal injection at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison.
He was 44 years old.
His final meal was unusually elaborate. It included bacon-wrapped filet mignon, shrimp prepared with garlic butter and lemon, a loaded baked potato, corn, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, a French baguette with goat cheese, cantaloupe, apple pie, vanilla ice cream, and iced tea.
Prison officials said Conklin finished the meal, eating from two plates.
The unusual order later became one of the most memorable aspects of his case and was eventually included in a 2022 book about the final meals of convicted killers.
A Family Finally Gets an Ending
George Crooks’s family had waited more than two decades for the legal process to reach its conclusion.
After Conklin’s execution, Crooks’s older brother Jim said that the case had finally reached its end and expressed the feeling that enough time had passed.
For the Crooks family, the execution could not undo what had happened in 1984. But it marked the end of a long legal journey surrounding George’s death.
Conklin became the third person executed in Georgia during 2005 and the 39th person executed by the state since the restoration of capital punishment in 1976.
The case remains notable not only because of the violent murder of George Grant Crooks, but also because of the decades-long legal battle that followed and the unusual final meal that became associated with Robert Dale Conklin.
This story is based on publicly available information and reported facts. It has been independently written and presented for informational purposes. Images, if any, belong to their respective owners.
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