California Death Row Drops To 749 After Tulare Murderer Dies Of Natural Causes
CORCORAN, Calif. (AP) - A man awaiting execution for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl has died of natural causes.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says 52-year-old Charles Keith Richardson died Tuesday at the Correctional Treatment Center at California State Prison-Corcoran.
He was sentenced to death in 1992 by a Tulare County jury for raping and murdering April Holley in 1988. The fifth-grader was found submerged in a tub in her family's home in Tulare.
A second man also was sentenced to die for the murder. Steven Allen Brown, now 46, has been on death row since 1996.
Sixty-six condemned inmates have died from natural causes since California reinstated capital punishment in 1978, while 14 have been executed. Another 23 have committed suicide.
Death row now holds 749 inmates.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.
