strongernow
07-22-2004, 07:32 AM
Vietnam Vet Executed in Georgia for Niece's Murder
JACKSON, Ga. (Reuters) - A Vietnam veteran who spent 20 years on death row for the rape and murder of his two-year-old niece was executed on Monday in Georgia after courts rejected his bid for DNA testing of new evidence.
Eddie Albert Crawford, 57, received a lethal injection at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia, about 50 miles south of Atlanta. He died at 7:49 p.m. EDT, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Peggy Chapman said.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to block the execution.
Crawford, who claimed to have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and blackouts after his return from military service in Vietnam, was sentenced to death in 1984 for killing Leslie English, his niece through marriage.
"I don't remember anything. If this gives them (English's family) peace, it was well worth it," Crawford said in a final statement before a sedative, a lung-paralyzing drug and the poison potassium chloride were injected into his arms.
He refused to eat a final meal.
Prosecutors said Crawford abducted English from her house in Griffin, Georgia, early on Sept. 25, 1983, after her mother -- Crawford's sister-in-law -- refused to have sex with him.
The toddler's partly clothed body was left in some nearby woods. She had been raped and suffocated.
Police used hair and carpet fibers found on the victim's body to link Crawford to the crime. He also made inconsistent statements to authorities about his niece's disappearance and his whereabouts at the time.
Defense lawyers had urged authorities to postpone the execution to give them more time to determine whether two hairs found on the girl's body and clothing belonged to Crawford.
Ed Garland, an Atlanta defense lawyer and board member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that takes up cases involving DNA, said the case cried out for DNA testing.
Crawford's first conviction was thrown out on procedural grounds. He was found guilty of English's murder and sentenced to die at a second trial in 1987.
His execution was the second in Georgia this year and 36th in the Southern state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
JACKSON, Ga. (Reuters) - A Vietnam veteran who spent 20 years on death row for the rape and murder of his two-year-old niece was executed on Monday in Georgia after courts rejected his bid for DNA testing of new evidence.
Eddie Albert Crawford, 57, received a lethal injection at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia, about 50 miles south of Atlanta. He died at 7:49 p.m. EDT, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Peggy Chapman said.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to block the execution.
Crawford, who claimed to have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and blackouts after his return from military service in Vietnam, was sentenced to death in 1984 for killing Leslie English, his niece through marriage.
"I don't remember anything. If this gives them (English's family) peace, it was well worth it," Crawford said in a final statement before a sedative, a lung-paralyzing drug and the poison potassium chloride were injected into his arms.
He refused to eat a final meal.
Prosecutors said Crawford abducted English from her house in Griffin, Georgia, early on Sept. 25, 1983, after her mother -- Crawford's sister-in-law -- refused to have sex with him.
The toddler's partly clothed body was left in some nearby woods. She had been raped and suffocated.
Police used hair and carpet fibers found on the victim's body to link Crawford to the crime. He also made inconsistent statements to authorities about his niece's disappearance and his whereabouts at the time.
Defense lawyers had urged authorities to postpone the execution to give them more time to determine whether two hairs found on the girl's body and clothing belonged to Crawford.
Ed Garland, an Atlanta defense lawyer and board member of the Georgia Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that takes up cases involving DNA, said the case cried out for DNA testing.
Crawford's first conviction was thrown out on procedural grounds. He was found guilty of English's murder and sentenced to die at a second trial in 1987.
His execution was the second in Georgia this year and 36th in the Southern state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.