Georgia executes man for '94 store clerk killing

Ray Jefferson Cromartie (Georgia Department of Corrections)

Georgia has executed a man convicted in the 1994 killing of a convenience store clerk.

Officials say 52-year-old Ray Jefferson Cromartie was pronounced dead at 10:59 p.m. Wednesday after an injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson.

Cromartie had been convicted and sentenced to die for the April 1994 slaying of Richard Slysz at a convenience store in Thomasville, near the Georgia-Florida line.

A Georgia Supreme Court summary of the case says Cromartie and another man went into a convenience store on April 10, 1994, and Cromartie fatally shot Slysz and then grabbed two cases of beer before leaving the store.

Prosecutors say Cromartie also shot another convenience store clerk a few days earlier. That clerk was badly wounded but survived.