Another Mississippi inmate asks state to set execution date

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi death row inmate says he wants the state to start planning his execution. The request by Blayde Nathaniel Grayson was filed in a handwritten letter Friday — weeks after another Mississippi prisoner surrendered appeals and was put to death. Grayson was convicted of capital murder in 1997 in the 1996 stabbing death of 78-year-old Minnie Smith during a burglary of her George County home. Mississippi carried out its first execution in nine years on Nov. 17, giving a lethal injection to David Neal Cox. A jury sentenced Cox to death for killing his estranged wife and sexually assaulting his stepdaughter.