Mississippi is set to execute a man convicted of raping and killing a college student

JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 20-year-old community college student is set to be executed Wednesday evening at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman

JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 20-year-old community college student is set to be executed Wednesday evening at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.

Charles Crawford, 59, has been on death row for more than 30 years. The scheduled lethal injection comes several months after the execution of Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate in a year of increasing executions nationwide.

Charles Ray Crawford in Aug 2017.Mississippi Department of Corrections / via APCrawford 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.

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.