Justice After 30 Years: Mississippi Executes Charles Ray Crawford for 1993 Rape and Murder of College Student

After more than three decades on death row, Mississippi inmate Charles Ray Crawford was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday evening at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. Officials confirmed the 64-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. local time following the denial of last-minute appeals and clemency requests. The Mississippi Department of Corrections stated that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Crawford’s plea for a stay, while Governor Tate Reeves also refused to grant clemency earlier in the week. “Justice must be served on behalf of victims. In Mississippi, it will be,” Reeves wrote on Facebook prior to the execution.

Crawford’s death marks the grim conclusion of a case that has haunted the state since 1993. He was convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering 20-year-old community college student Kristy Ray, who was abducted from her parents’ Tippah County home on January 29, 1993. Investigators later discovered a ransom note composed of magazine cutouts in the attic of Crawford’s former father-in-law, leading to his arrest. Authorities determined that Ray had been taken to a remote cabin, where she was handcuffed, assaulted, and fatally stabbed in the chest. At the time, Crawford was already awaiting trial for a separate 1991 rape and assault case, which became an aggravating factor during his capital murder trial the following year.

Over the next 30 years, Crawford launched numerous appeals, all of which were ultimately rejected. His legal team argued that his constitutional rights had been violated when his defense lawyers conceded guilt and pursued an insanity defense against his wishes. The Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed this appeal in September, ruling it was filed too late. As the curtain closed on one of Mississippi’s longest-running death row cases, officials described the execution as the final chapter in a decades-long pursuit of justice for Kristy Ray and her family.