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A mississippi Man, charles crawfordThe 59-year-old was hanged on Wednesday for the 1993 kidnapping. rapeand the murder of a 20-year-old community college student.
He was declared dead at 6:15 pm lethal injection At the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. Crawford spent more than 30 years death row,
His execution Follows Mississippi’s longest-serving inmate amid a national increase in the death penalty. In his final statement, Crawford said: “To my family, I love you. I’m at peace. I’ve got God’s peace,” adding, “I’ll be in heaven.”
He also addressed Ray’s family, saying, “For the victim’s family, true closure and true peace, you can’t reach that without God.”
The execution took place at 6:01 pm and Crawford could be seen breathing deeply. Five minutes later he was declared unconscious. At 6:08 pm, his breathing became slower and slower and his mouth began to tremble. After a minute, she took a deep breath and then her chest stopped moving.
Crawford was convicted of kidnapping Christy Ray from her parents’ home in Tipp County, northern Mississippi, on January 29, 1993. According to court records, when Ray’s mother came home, her daughter’s car was missing and a handwritten ransom note was left on the table.
That same day, a different ransom note belonging to a woman named Jennifer, made from magazine cutouts, was found in the attic of Crawford’s former father-in-law. The note was turned over to law enforcement, who began a search for Crawford. He was arrested a day later and said he was returning from a hunting trip.
He later told authorities that he had blacked out and had no memory of killing Ray.
At the time of that arrest, Crawford was just days away from trial on a separate assault charge. The trial stemmed from an attack in 1991 in which Crawford was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl and killing her friend with a hammer.
Despite her claims that she had experienced a blackout and had no memory of being raped or attacked with a hammer, Crawford was found guilty of both charges in two separate trials.
His prior rape conviction was considered an “aggravating circumstance” by jurors in Crawford’s capital murder trial, paving the way for his death sentence.
Over the past three decades, Crawford tried unsuccessfully to overturn his death sentence.
His lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court, but in an order issued minutes before the execution was scheduled, the High Court refused to stop it without explanation. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The appeal alleged that Crawford’s lawyers admitted his guilt in the capital murder trial and raised an insanity defense despite Crawford’s repeated objections.
“It’s almost as if he never got the chance to make an innocent or guilty case because his attorney ignored his wishes from the beginning,” said Chrissy Noble, director of the Mississippi office of Capital Post-Conviction Relief, which represents Crawford.
In her dissent, Sotomayor noted a 2018 ruling by the high court that lawyers cannot overrule a defendant’s clear and unambiguous decision not to plead guilty at trial. Under that decision, Crawford could prove that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated and he would likely be entitled to a new trial because that’s what his lawyers did, she wrote.
But Crawford’s conviction became final before that case was decided, and the court “has not fully resolved” whether the 2018 ruling is retroactive and applies in post-conviction proceedings, Sotomayor wrote.
“The Court refused to resolve that question, even when a man’s life was at stake,” he wrote.
The Mississippi Supreme Court rejected this argument in September, writing that Crawford should have brought an appeal sooner and that he did not present an adequate argument as to why the Supreme Court’s decision should be retroactive.
After the Mississippi Supreme Court set his execution date in September, Noble said Crawford expressed both disappointment and resolution. Nobel portrayed Crawford as a dignified, uplifting presence death rowHe said he worked inside the prison and advocated for other prisoners.
Mark McClure, chief superintendent of operations for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said during a press conference that Crawford visited with his family and a preacher on Wednesday afternoon.
The Associated Press Made several attempts to contact Ray’s relatives, but received no response. Crawford also did not respond to requests for comment.
It was the third lethal injection in two days in the US, following Tuesday’s executions in Florida and Missouri. A total of 38 people have died in the United States so far this year due to court-ordered executions.
In Florida, 72-year-old Samuel Lee Smithers was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murders of two women, whose bodies were found in a rural pond. In Missouri, Lance Shockley was executed for fatally shooting a state trooper in 2005.
Six more executions are scheduled in 2025, with the next execution being that of Richard Zerff, who was convicted of murdering four members of a family in Arizona 30 years ago.