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Man who killed for $10,000 gets death

ATLANTA (UPI) -- A Georgia man has been sentenced to death for killing a young mother in a murder-for-hire motivated by racial antipathy.

A jury in Atlanta found Thursday that Cleveland Clark, 52, should die by lethal injection for the murder of Sparkle Rai. Rai's father-in-law, Chiman Rai, is serving a life sentence for recruiting Clark to kill her for $10,000 because he disapproved of his son's marriage to a black woman.

Rai, 22, was strangled with the cord of a vacuum cleaner in 2000 in the presence of her 6-month-old daughter.

At one point, the judge ordered the jurors out of the courtroom and had bailiffs take Clark away when he launched a diatribe laced with obscenities.

"I said I didn't kill no … woman," Clark said, hitting the defense table. "What's wrong with you? I'm sick of this … telling lies on me."

Rai's father and stepmother watched the sentencing.

"I feel like a big burden has been lifted from my shoulders," her father, Bennet Reid, said. "I really believe that Sparkle has seen this happen, and she's smiling down."

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 07/03/2009

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