September 19, 2012 http://www.douglascountysentinel.com

A man who had been on death row for an infamous 1990 Douglas County “Golden Gun” murder has died of natural causes just months before he was scheduled to be executed.

Convicted murderer Raymond Burgess was taken “to a local area hospital for an unspecified health related issue where he was pronounced dead on Sept. 16th,” according to Georgia Department of Corrections Public Affairs Officer Gwendolyn Hogan. Hogan would not address information that Burgess had suffered a stroke.

Burgess was scheduled for lethal injection after the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that “the evidence of Burgess’ guilt was overwhelming and five different statutory aggravating circumstances supported the death sentence,” just three months ago and upheld the death sentence.

According to District Attorney David McDade McDade, Burgess and co-defendant Norris Young met while both served prison sentences in the 1980s and after being paroled in 1989 reunited and began committing a series of violent armed robberies throughout metro Atlanta.

The pair became known as the “Golden Gun Robbers” because in each instance they subdued their victims using a distinctive gold-plated revolver. McDade described the crimes as “vicious and violent attacks on innocent victims.”

He said Burgess and Young traveled around metro Atlanta interstates confronting and robbing families that were staying in hotels near highway exits. Burgess’ crime spree involved brutal attacks on at least four other victims at four separate motels prior to the brutal murder of an Alabama man staying at a Douglasville motel in July 1990, as the victim and his family were traveling to visit Six Flags.

Evidence at the murder trial established that Burgess and Young first attacked, tied up and robbed a young couple staying at the motel and held them at gunpoint until Liston Chunn and his family pulled into the parking lot and were confronted by Burgess with the “golden gun.”

Chunn was then shot and killed in front of his family by Burgess after the convicted killer demanded that the victim take his hands out of his pockets. After robbing the victims, Burgess and Young fled.

At trial Burgess was identified as one of two men who attacked and robbed victims at seven separate hotels and motels in the summer of 1990 using the gold-plated revolver in every attack. Several attacks occurred before Chunn’s murder and several in the weeks following.

Following his conviction in February of 1992 for the murder and armed robbery of Liston Chunn and his family in Douglasville, Burgess was sentenced to death and had been on death row ever since, appealing his conviction and sentence.