Executed man spent life as ward of state

A man who spent his life as a ward of North Carolina was executed early Friday for killing an elderly preacher who had given him money and food.

Perrie Dyon Simpson, 43, was in the foster care system for most of his childhood and lived his adult life on death row. He died by lethal injection at 2 a.m. at the Central Prison, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.

A few hours before the execution, 14 anti-death penalty activists were arrested outside the prison for trying to get on the grounds.

Simpson was 21 in 1984 when he and his pregnant girlfriend came to the Rev. Jean Ernest Darter's house in Reidsville. The 92-year-old retired Baptist minister gave them peaches and cake and sent them on their way with $4, all the money he had in the house.

The couple returned the next night looking for more money. Darter was beaten, strangled and cut with razor blades.

In final appeals and bids for clemency, Simpson's lawyers argued his family and the state failed him during his childhood. Both his parents were imprisoned for child abuse.

His former girlfriend, Stephanie Eury, who was 16 at the time of the crime, is serving a life sentence.

© Copyright 2006 by United Press International