NORTH CAROLINA - Man Who Killed Elderly Aunt Executed

15/11/03

In Raleigh, a man who strangled his elderly aunt in 1990 was executed early Friday by injection.

John Dennis Daniels, 46, was pronounced dead at 2:15 a.m. at Central Prison in Raleigh, corrections officials said.

A jury sentenced Daniels to death for fatally choking 77-year-old Isabella Daniels Crawford with an ironing cord. He was also convicted of assaulting his wife and son with a hammer, assaulting his neighbor with a knife and attempting to burn his house after Crawford was killed.

The state Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Daniels' appeal, and Gov. Mike Easley refused to commute Daniels' sentence to life in prison. A Superior Court judge declined earlier this week to block the execution.

Daniels had been having marital problems and was behind on his rent when he went to his aunt's house in Charlotte on Jan. 17, 1990, to ask for money. He also asked if his wife and son could live with her.

Crawford refused and said she was going to call his mother. Daniels hit her in the face and choked her with the cord, took $70 to $80 and returned home.

Daniels becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in North Carolina and the 29th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1984.

Daniels becomes the 61st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 881st overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.