ATMORE Ala. (AP) — Alabama is preparing to execute a man convicted of killing a woman during a 1997 gas station robbery as the victim's son urged the state to stop the execution and spare the man's life.

Geoffrey Todd West, 50, is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas Thursday night at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in south Alabama. West was convicted of capital murder in the 1997 shooting death of Margaret Parrish Berry, 33.

Berry's son in recent weeks has urged Alabama's governor to commute West's sentence to life in prison. He said taking another life will not help his family.

“I forgive him and so does my dad. We don't want him to die,” Will Berry said of West.

In the hours ahead of his scheduled execution, West visited with his attorneys, parents and other relatives. He had a final meal of chicken quesadillas.

It is one of two executions scheduled Thursday in the United States. Texas plans to carry out a lethal injection the same evening.

Berry, the mother of two sons, was shot while lying on the floor behind the counter at Harold’s Chevron in Etowah County on March 28, 1997.

Prosecutors said the store clerk was killed to ensure there was no witness left behind. Court records state that $250 was taken from a cookie can that held the store’s money.

A jury convicted West of capital murder during a robbery and voted 10-2 to recommend a death sentence. Etowah County Circuit Judge William Cardwell accepted that recommendation and said at the 1999 sentencing that he found it difficult to order the execution of a young man but the killing was “intentional, carried out execution-style.”

Will Berry sent a letter to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey urging her to halt the execution and let West serve the rest of his life in prison.

He was 11 when his mother was killed, and he said prosecutors urged the family to support a death sentence. Now a father and grandfather, Will Berry said time and his faith have given him a different perspective. He said West was a troubled young man with a drug-fueled past who made a terrible decision.

“Vengeance isn’t for the state. It’s for the Lord,” Will Berry told The Associated Press.

On Tuesday he joined death penalty opponents at a vigil outside the Alabama Capitol. He delivered a petition to Ivey’s office asking that the execution be halted.

Ivey said in a Sept. 11 letter to Berry that she appreciates his belief but Alabama law “imposes death as punishment for the most egregious forms of murder.”

“As governor, it is my solemn duty to carry out these laws,” Ivey wrote.

Ivey, who has commuted one death sentence during her eight years in office, wrote that she did so in that case only because of questions about the person’s guilt.

West and Will Berry exchanged letters. The two men asked to be able to meet, but the state denied the request for security reasons.

Will Berry does not plan to witness the execution. He said it is frustrating that the state will allow him to watch the execution but not to visit with West ahead of time.

West does not deny killing Margaret Berry. He said that at age 50, he struggles to understand what he did at 21. He and his girlfriend were desperate for cash and went to the store where he once worked to rob it.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it and wish that I could take that back,” West told AP.

He said he wants to apologize to Berry's family.

“I’m so very sorry for the hurt that I’ve caused you all. I’m so very sorry for what I’ve taken away from you, and I hope and pray you forgive me,” West said of what he wants to tell Berry’s family.

West is to be executed by nitrogen gas. The method involves strapping a gas mask to the face and forcing the inmate to breathe pure nitrogen gas, thus depriving the person of the oxygen needed to stay alive.

After state lawmakers in 2018 authorized nitrogen gas as an execution method, the Alabama Department of Corrections gave death row prisoners a brief window to choose between that, lethal injection or the electric chair.

West was one several dozen who picked nitrogen then. However, at that time, the state had not yet developed procedures for using it and it was unclear when that would happen.

Alabama carried out the nation's first nitrogen gas execution in 2024. Nationally, six people have now been executed using nitrogen gas — five in Alabama and one in Louisiana.

Lethal injection remains Alabama's primary execution method.