Daniel Craven Florida Prison Murder

Daniel Craven was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for a murder committed inside of prison

According to court documents Daniel Craven who was already serving life for a murder conviction would stab to death his cellmate John H. Anderson

Daniel Craven would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death

Daniel Craven Photos

Daniel Craven FAQ

Daniel Craven Case

While serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for a

conviction of first-degree murder with a weapon, Craven stabbed his cellmate,

John H. Anderson, to death with a homemade knife that Craven had fashioned

from a piece of their cell door. Craven confessed, multiple times, to killing

Anderson and was charged with first-degree premeditated murder. During the

guilt-phase opening statements at Craven’s trial, defense counsel admitted that
Craven had murdered Anderson but argued that Craven was guilty of second-

degree murder.

  The evidence presented at trial established that upon Craven’s arrival at

Graceville Correctional Facility in early April 2015, Craven, a white supremacist

with a swastika tattoo, was assigned to share a cell with the victim, who was

African American. Craven almost immediately requested to be reassigned to a

different cell, claiming that he and the victim were not getting along, but ultimately

withdrew the request and indicated that he and the victim would work it out.

  On June 25, 2015, three days before the victim’s murder, Craven called his

mother and demanded that she come to visit him. When Craven’s mother stated

that she might not be able to make the trip, Craven told her, “Then don’t plan on it

for about five years.” During their phone call, Craven’s mother advised him to

wait to give himself some time “for whatever is on [his] mind,” to which Craven

responded, “I made up my mind a long time ago.” On June 27, 2015, the day

before the victim’s murder, Craven’s mother visited with him for several hours.

After Craven’s mother left the facility, Craven called her and told her “not to

worry” and that “he loves her.”

  At 10:07 p.m. on June 27, after watching the movie Selma, the victim

entered the two-person cell that he shared with Craven. Craven entered the cell

just after 1 a.m. on the morning of June 28, 2015. A corrections officer conducted

                                    -2-

a visual inspection of the cell door at 1:31 a.m. and did not note anything unusual.

At 4:44 a.m., Craven left the cell for breakfast and placed a sign on the window,

purportedly from the victim, that stated “[s]tomach bug, sleeping, please do not

knock or disturb my rest.” Craven entered and exited the cell several times

throughout the morning of June 28. At 12:25 p.m., Craven told a corrections

officer that he had killed his roommate around 2 a.m. that morning.

  Corrections officers found Anderson’s body in the cell, and he was

pronounced dead. Craven subsequently confessed multiple times to stabbing

Anderson to death, to cleaning up the cell, and to hiding the murder weapon in a

sock and placing it in a shower grate, where law enforcement later recovered it.

  The medical examiner testified that Anderson suffered approximately thirty

wounds to his head, throat, neck, and upper torso, twelve of which were stab

wounds that punctured Anderson’s skin and the remainder of which were incision

wounds that cut Anderson’s skin. Stab wounds to Anderson’s windpipe and

jugular vein were critical, and the cause of death was a combination of significant

blood loss and the inhalation of blood as a result of the stab wounds. The medical

examiner further testified that there were no injuries that would have likely

rendered Anderson unconscious, that there were defensive wounds on Anderson’s

palms and wrists, and that Anderson’s death was not immediate and may have

                                    -3-

taken from minutes to half an hour, during which time Anderson received painful

stab and incision wounds while he essentially drowned in his own blood.

  During law enforcement’s investigation, bloodstains on Craven’s socks and

boxer shorts and blood recovered from Craven’s ear matched Anderson’s DNA.

Additionally, a partial DNA match to Anderson was found on the murder weapon,

and blood recovered from a wall in Craven and Anderson’s cell matched

Anderson’s DNA.

  Craven’s jury also heard testimony from an inmate who was housed a few

cells away from Craven and Anderson’s cell. On the morning of Anderson’s

murder, the inmate testified that, between 1:30 and 2 a.m., he heard “stumbling”

and someone saying “get off of me” and “help me” from the vicinity of Craven and

Anderson’s cell.

  In addition, the jury heard statements that Craven had made to law

enforcement, in which he admitted stabbing Anderson to death and that the killing

was “planned out,” plus letters that Craven had written to government officials, in

which he confessed to killing Anderson and threatened his “personal brand of

justice” unless he was sentenced to death. One of Craven’s letters was titled “Full

Confession to a Capital Murder from the Killer,” and in it Craven described how

he carried out his plan to kill Anderson, who Craven said was asleep in his bunk

for an hour to an hour and a half before he began his attack:

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4799133/daniel-jacob-craven-jr-v-state-of-florida/