A Mississippi man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 20-year-old community college student in 1993 was executed Wednesday.
Charles Crawford, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. following a lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.
Crawford had spent more than 30 years on death row. His execution comes several months after the execution of Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate in a year of increasing executions nationwide. There have been 37 executions this year, not including Crawford, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Crawford was convicted of abducting Kristy Ray from her parents’ home in northern Mississippi’s Tippah County on Jan. 29, 1993. According to court records, when Ray’s mother came home, her daughter’s car was gone, and a handwritten ransom note had been left on the table.
On the same day, a different ransom note, made from magazine cutouts and concerning a woman named Jennifer, was found in the attic of Crawford’s former father-in-law. The note was turned over to law enforcement, who began searching for Crawford. He was arrested a day later and said he was returning from a hunting trip.
He later told authorities he blacked out and did not recall killing Ray.
At the time of that arrest, Crawford was days away from going to 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 hitting her friend with a hammer.
Despite his assertions that he had experienced blackouts and did not remember committing either the rape or the hammer attack, 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.
Given the chance to make a final statement, Crawford said, “To my family, I love you. I’m at peace. I’ve got God’s peace,” and added, “I’ll be in heaven.”
He also addressed Ray’s family, saying, “To the victim’s family, true closure and true peace, you cannot reach that without God.”
Over the past three decades, Crawford tried unsuccessfully to overturn his death sentence.
In an order issued minutes before the execution was scheduled to take place, the U.S. Supreme Court declined without explanation to stop the execution. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
His lawyers had appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing Crawford should be granted a new trial because his Sixth Amendment rights were violated in his 1994 trial.
The appeal alleged that Crawford’s lawyers admitted his guilt in the capital murder trial and pursued an insanity defense despite Crawford’s repeated objections. The argument relies on a 2018 Supreme Court ruling, which ordered a new trial for a death row inmate and established that a lawyer for a criminal defendant cannot override a client’s wish to maintain innocence at trial.
“It’s almost like he didn’t even get the chance to have innocent or guilty matter because his attorney just overrode his wishes from the outset,” said Krissy Nobile, the director of the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Relief, who represented Crawford.
The Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed the argument in September, writing that Crawford should have brought the appeal sooner and did not present adequate reasoning why the 2018 Supreme Court ruling should be retroactive.
After the Mississippi Supreme Court set his execution date in September, Nobile said Crawford expressed both disappointment and resolution.
Nobile characterized Crawford as a respected, uplifting presence on death row. She said he worked inside the prison and advocated for other inmates.
Marc McClure, the chief superintendent of operations for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said during a press conference that Crawford visited with his family and a preacher Wednesday afternoon.
The Associated Press made multiple attempts to contact Ray’s relatives, but did not receive a response. Crawford also did not return requests for comment.
The lethal injection was the third in two days in the U.S. after executions Tuesday in Florida and Missouri. A total of 38 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the United States.
In Florida, Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, was put to death for the 1996 killings of two women whose bodies were found in a rural pond. In Missouri, Lance Shockley was executed by lethal injection after the state’s governor denied his clemency petition. Shockley was convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting a Missouri state trooper in 2005.
There are six more executions scheduled to take place in 2025, the next being that of Richard Djerf, who was convicted of killing four members of a family in Arizona over 30 years ago.
Alabama inmate Anthony Boyd is scheduled to be executed later this month for a 1993 murder. He continues to maintain his innocence, saying, “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t participate in any killing.” He was convicted in 1995 of capital murder and kidnapping in the death of George Huguley, and a jury voted 10-2 to recommend that he receive the death penalty.
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