Edward Busby is scheduled to be executed by the State of Texas on May 14 2026 for the murder of Laura Lee Crane in 2004
According to court documents Edward Busby would kidnap seventy seven year old Laura Lee Crane from a grocery store. He would put duct tape over her mouth and nose which caused her death
Edward Busby would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The State of Texas executed one man in 2026 and five men in 2025
Update – Edward Busby was executed on April 14 2026 by lethal injection
Edward Busby Execution News
An execution date has been set for a man convicted of robbing and suffocating a retired TCU professor, according to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office. Edward Lee Busby Jr., 53, is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, May 14, 2026.
Busby was convicted in 2005 of killing Laura Lee Crane, 77, after abducting her from a Fort Worth grocery store parking lot in January 2004. Investigators believe she was a random target and that robbery was the motive.
During the trial in 2005, prosecutors said Busby and his companion used Crane’s credit cards and a blank check to rob her of more than $775 before driving Crane’s car to Oklahoma with her in the trunk.
Crane’s body was found Feb. 3 at the bottom of an embankment off Interstate 35 near Davis, Okla. Crane’s mouth was covered with duct tape, and she died from asphyxiation, according to an autopsy report.
Authorities were led to the body after Busby confessed, Fort Worth police have said.
Busby’s companion, Kathleen “Kitty” Latimer, was sentenced to life in prison in Feb. 2006. She is now 61 years old and is currently serving her sentence in a Texas prison. She could be eligible for parole in 2034.
Laura Lee Crane was director emeritus of Starpoint School, TCU. According to her obituary, she graduated from Paschal High School, received a bachelor of fine arts degree from Sweet Briar College, and a master of arts from Texas Christian University.
“Her entire career was devoted to children with learning disabilities and special needs. She authored a nationally recognized reading program for LD students. She served on the founding faculty of Starpoint School, and for over 20 years as its director. She was formerly a member of the Assembly Fort Worth Woman’s Club and the Fort Worth Junior League.”
Execution date set for man who abducted, killed retired TCU professor | FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth
Edward Busby Execution
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for Texas to carry out its 600th execution on Thursday, May 14.
Edward Busby’s execution had been on hold for nearly a week after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay over his intellectual disabilities. The state appealed the ruling and Busby’s fate was unclear until the Supreme Court’s ruling came in late on Thursday, May 14.
Three hours later, Texas executed him. Busby was pronounced dead at 8:11 p.m. CT
Liberal justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor opposed the ruling. Jackson wrote in a dissenting opinion that Texas’s own expert found that Busby was too intellectually disabled to be executed.
“In capital cases, we rarely intervene to preserve life,” Jackson wrote in the dissenting opinion. “I cannot understand the Court’s rush to extinguish it, much less in the circumstances of this case.”
Busby was convicted of the 2004 robbery and murder of a 77-year-old former Texas Christian University professor named Laura Lee Crane, who was attacked while on a grocery store run in Fort Worth.
In his last words, Busby asked a room full of witnesses, including family members of Crane’s, not to hate him and to find it in their hearts to forgive him.
“Ms. Crane was a lovely woman, I never meant anything bad to happen to her,” he said as he lay strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, according to the Texas Department of Corrections. “I am so sorry … I’ve hurt your family, I’ve hurt my family, and I wish I could take it all back. With all my heart I wish I could take it back.”
Texas had executed 599 inmates since 1976, hundreds more than any other state in the nation before Busby’s execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks executions in the U.S.
“Mr. Busby will become the 600th person executed in Texas in the last 50 years,” the organization said in a post about what the milestone means for the state and the nation. The agency said that Busby’s case is illustrative of how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S. for inmates of color and those with intellectual disabilities.
Here’s what else you need to know about the case.
On Jan. 30, 2004, 77-year-old Laura Lee Crane was on a grocery store run near her home in Fort Worth when her nightmare began. Edward Busby and his girlfriend kidnapped the retired Texas Christian University professor, put her in the trunk of her own car and wrapped her head in duct tape, according to court records.
She suffocated to death.
“The trunk became her coffin,” prosecutor Greg Miller said during Busby’s trial, according to an archived news report. “The car itself became her funeral hearse.”
Busby has always maintained that he never meant to kill Crane and that he thought he had wrapped the duct tape around her head in such a way that she could still breathe. He said the plan was to let her go when they were far enough away from Oklahoma.
“I just want everyone to know that it wasn’t my intention for that lady to die,” he said in a tearful jailhouse interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2004. “I don’t know what happened. I was up for two days smoking crack.”
Crane’s body was wrapped in a white sheet and left on the side of a highway near Davis, Oklahoma. Busby led authorities to the location.
On Friday, May 8, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay in Busby’s execution less than a week before it was scheduled.
The court cited an upcoming Alabama case that stands to change how an inmate’s intellectual disabilities are determined.
“In a matter of life and death, we must be certain that we apply the proper constitutional rule as to whether and how to determine intellectual disability before states may execute defendants for capital crimes,” 5th Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson wrote, “especially when it is a rule that the Supreme Court imminently will clarify.”
The Supreme Court justices are considering how to weigh multiple IQ scores when determining if a death row inmate’s intellectual disability is severe enough that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to execute him.
The Supreme Court could have allowed Busby’s stay to remain in place as they decided the issue but the majority ruled to allow it to move forward.
Killer becomes 600th executed by Texas after Supreme Court clears the way
