Doyle Lucas was executed by the State of South Carolina for a double murder
According to court documents Doyle Lucas would break into a home where he would shoot and kill the owners Bill Rayfield 65, and Mr. Rayfield’s 64-year-old wife, Evelyn.
Doyle Lucas would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Doyle Lucas would be executed by lethal injection on November 15 1996
Doyle Lucas Case
A death row inmate who waived appeals to save his life because he already had spent more than half his life in prison was executed by lethal injection early Friday for the 1983 killing of a South Carolina couple. Doyle Lucas, 41, spent 27 years in prison — including 13 years on death row — and asked a federal court earlier this year to drop his appeals and allow the state to carry out the execution, saying he did not ‘want to give the state another 20 years’ of his life.
A federal judge ruled that Lucas was competent to waive his right to appeals. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1983 killings of Bill and Evelyn Rayfield of Rock Hill, S.C. — crimes he committed one day after being released from prison. Attorney Dottie Fort read a three-page statement in which Lucas apologized to the Rayfield family and his own family. He also explained that he abandoned any appeals to save his life because the ‘the constant pain that I experience daily from my spine and shoulders is more than I care to endure knowing the problem will never be corrected. ‘…(T)o the general public, all I ask of you is that you not believe the lies and rhetoric coming from public officials. The length of the appeals process has nothing whatsover to do with my decision to abandon these appeals, as the politicians would like for you to, or would trick you into believing
‘The reasons are as I have stated: the pain that I suffer from and the thought of spending my life locked away in a prison cell, away from everything I love and care for. I have given the state of South Carolina 27 years of my life. I refuse to give them 20 more.’ Mickey Rayfield, the son of the victims, said: ‘Thirteen years ago my parents were killed in their own house in the middle of the night.
For 13 years Cecil Lucas has been on death row. I’m sure that’s no picnic. ‘We kept wondering if the Supreme Court would come up with some ruling that would make us re-live the nightmare,’ Rayfield said. ‘Cecil Lucas is a cold-blooded killer. He was sent to prison to die and tonight he is dead,’ Rayfield said. ‘I feel like with his death it is finally over.’ Lucas, who dined on fruit cocktail as his last meal, saw his wife, Norma Jean, preparing to witness his execution. Several times, he mouthed, ‘I love you. Always have and always will.’ The needle for the administration of the drugs was placed in his neck since previous drug use had caused the collapse of his other veins. Two other South Carolina death row inmates also have sought to waive their appeals and proceed with their sentences. Lucas was the fifth prisoner executed this year in South Carolina.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/11/15/Lucas-executed-in-South-Carolina/2643848034000/
