5 MINS AGO: Charles Crawford Executed for Rape and Murder of College Student
On October 15th, 2025, after more than 31 years on death row, justice was finally served. Charles Ray Crawford was executed by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman for the horrific crime he committed against a 20-year-old woman. In this video, we will reveal what happened that day, his last meal, and his final words.
Back in 1991 at just 25 years old, Charles Ray Crawford already led a life marked by instability, petty theft, and drug abuse. He had no clear direction, wandering the streets of Mississippi and surviving by whatever means he could. His personal life reflected the same chaos. He had married young and was already separated from his wife.
It was in this turbulent context that he committed his first major violent crime. One afternoon in April, Crawford encountered his ex-wife’s younger sister, a 17-year-old, along with a friend. He offered to give them a ride, and the girls, assuming they were being taken home, agreed. Instead, he drove them to an abandoned house on the outskirts of Walnut, Mississippi.
There, Crawford revealed his true nature. He pulled out a weapon, forced his ex-sister-in-law into the house, bound her hands with tape, and gagged her. He then brutally raped her, a cold, merciless act. When he tried to assault her friend, she resisted, so Crawford grabbed a hammer and attacked her savagely, eventually subduing her before fleeing the scene in haste.
The young women survived and immediately called the police. Their testimonies along with forensic evidence quickly led to Crawford’s arrest. He was charged with rape, assault, and kidnapping. However, despite the severity of his crimes and the clear danger he posed, the judicial system allowed him to remain free on bail.
Once bail was posted, he awaited trial scheduled for February 1993. A judicial decision that just a few years later would prove fatal for another innocent victim. On January 29th, 1993, just 4 days before he was due to face justice for the previous charges, 26-year-old Charles Ray Crawford committed the crime that would seal his fate and ultimately send him to death row.
That day, Christy Denise Ray, a 20-year-old college student born in Germany, went to the Sunburst Bank in Mississippi, where she worked alongside her mother while attending Northeast Mississippi Community College. Christy and her mother had planned to meet at home later that evening after work. Around 6:45 p.m.
, Mary Ray tried to call her daughter, but received no answer. She assumed Christy was with her boyfriend, Brian. However, when Mary arrived home around 7:00 p.m., she noticed Christiey’s car was missing. Upon entering the house, the first thing she saw was a ransom note on the table. There will be a red flag somewhere on this block on Tuesday at midnight.
$15,000 in a gym bag or she dies. No police. The note was accompanied by a handdrawn map. Crawford had broken into the house intending to steal, confident it would be empty. But when he unexpectedly found Christy at home, he changed his plan and kidnapped her. He forcibly took her to an abandoned barn where instead of carrying out a simple ransom plan, he raped her and then stabbed her to death.
Christy Ray was young, cheerful, and deeply loved by those around her. She always wore a genuine smile and had a generous spirit. She studied at Northeast Mississippi Community College and dreamed of continuing her education at Mississippi State University. Christy had a special passion for computers, was responsible, hardworking, and held two part-time jobs.
She was also in a stable relationship with Brian Matthysse. Her exemplary life, full of plans and potential, was tragically cut short that fateful night. On the same day, Crawford’s family discovered a ransom note in their own attic, almost identical to the one he had left at the Ray household.
Fearing that Crawford might be planning a kidnapping, his mother, wife, and grandfather alerted his attorney, William Forier, and notified the police. After several hours of investigation, authorities were able to link Crawford to Christy’s disappearance and arrested him the following day near his former father-in-law’s house.
At the time of his arrest, Crawford was carrying a double-barreled shotgun and an automatic knife. Initially, Crawford denied killing Christy Ray, claiming he had blacked out and only remembered parts of the crime, not the murder. He later admitted that he must have killed her and led police to the location where he had hidden her body under leaves in a wooded area near the abandoned barn.
When officers found Christy, her hands were cuffed behind her back and tied to a cedar tree. A sock was stuffed in her mouth with a gag securing it, and her jeans were pulled down below her hips. The autopsy revealed that Christy died from a deep stab wound to the chest, which pierced her heart and left lung, causing massive internal and external bleeding.
DNA evidence collected at the crime scene matched both Christy and Crawford. During his 1994 trial, Crawford attempted an insanity defense. A prison psychiatrist who had treated him testified that he suffered from depression and memory loss episodes. The psychiatrist also discussed Crawford’s prior psychiatric hospitalizations, previous use of medication, and a 1989 diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
However, a clinical psychologist called by the prosecution testified that there was no evidence Crawford had bipolar disorder and pointed out that his actions appeared premeditated and that he understood the difference between right and wrong. A second rebuttal witness, a forensic psychiatrist, stated that Crawford had been incorrectly diagnosed with psychoggenic amnesia.
On April 22nd, 1994, Crawford was found guilty by a Lafayette County jury of capital murder, sexual assault, burglary, and rape on all counts. The following day, April 23rd, 1994, he was sentenced to death after the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. He also received life imprisonment without parole for the rape charge, as well as 15 and 30-year sentences for burglary and sexual assault, respectively.
Additionally, Crawford was found guilty of the earlier rape he had committed prior to Christy Ray’s murder and was sentenced to 46 years in prison for that crime. Over more than three decades, Crawford made numerous unsuccessful attempts to overturn his death sentence. In February 2014, the Mississippi Attorney General initially requested the state supreme court to schedule execution dates for Crawford and another inmate.
However, on March 31st, 2014, the Mississippi Supreme Court refused to authorize an execution order for Crawford, ruling that he had not yet exhausted all appeals related to his rape conviction, which was still pending. As a result, Crawford was temporarily spared from execution until the appeals process was complete.
On November 26th, 2024, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed a motion with the state supreme court requesting an execution date for Crawford, who had by then exhausted all appeals related to his death sentence. Crawford’s attorneys opposed the scheduling, arguing that he had not yet exhausted appeals for his other rape conviction, for which a final appeal to the US Supreme Court was planned.
On June 3rd, 2025, one day after the US Supreme Court denied Crawford’s final appeal regarding his rape conviction, Fitch filed a renewed petition to set a new execution date for him. The day had finally come. On October 15th, 2025, Charles Ray Crawford was executed by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman at 6:00 p.m.
He woke at 7:00 a.m. Calm and prepared to face the day. He spent his final hours with family members and a pastor of his choosing. At noon, he was offered his last meal, a double cheeseburger, French fries, peach pie, and chocolate ice cream, which he accepted quietly. Behind the glass, Crawford lay strapped to the gurnie covered with a white sheet that revealed only a small part of his red shirt.
To his right stood Burl Kaine, commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and to his left, Mark Mccclure, regional superintendent. Three other MDOC officials were at his feet, including a woman with a stethoscope. Mccclure then asked for Crawford’s final words. To my family, I love you. I am at peace. I have the peace of God, Crawford said.
To the victim’s family, true peace and closure cannot be found without God. Thank you, God, for giving me the peace I have. At 6:02 p.m., Crawford received the first drug of the three drug protocol, swallowing with a barely noticeable gesture. His chest began to move rhythmically 2 minutes later. A man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses approached to check his consciousness, pressing on his sternum before stating, “In my professional opinion, this man is unconscious.
” Between 6:06 and 6:10 p.m., Crawford’s lips and mouth moved slightly, trembling once. At 6:11 p.m., all movement ceased. The room fell into an absolute silence. Finally, at 6:15 p.m., Charles Ray Crawford was pronounced dead. The curtain of unit 17 slowly closed, marking the end of a life that had spent more than three decades under the shadow of death row.
