The teen accepted a plea deal and testified at Pye's trial. In June 1996, a jury sentenced Pye to death for murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, rape, and burglary.
Pye's lawyers have argued in court that prosecutors relied heavily on the teenager's testimony but that he later made contradicting comments.
Such messages and Pye's trial testimony demonstrate that Yarbrough left home willingly and proceeded to the motel to barter sex for drugs, lawyers alleged in court files.
Pye's lawyers also claimed in court pleadings that their client was raised in great poverty without indoor plumbing, food, shoes, or clothing. His lawyers said drunken family members neglected and abused him as a child.
His lawyers claimed that Pye's frontal lobe brain impairment, possibly caused by prenatal alcohol syndrome, impaired his planning and impulse control.
Pye's lawyers have long argued in court that he should be resentenced since his trial lawyer failed to prepare for sentencing. His lawyers claimed that the initial trial counsel neglected to investigate his “life, background, physical and psychiatric health” enough to submit mitigating evidence to the jury at sentencing.
A federal judge denied those allegations, but a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Pye's lawyers in April 2021. In October 2022, the entire federal appeals court overruled the panel verdict.
In April 1997, Pye's co-defendant Adams, 55, pled guilty to malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, armed robbery, rape, and aggravated sodomy. Five consecutive life sentences kept him in prison.
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