A Mississippi man convicted of raping and murdering a college student invoked God as he was executed on Wednesday, after more than 30 years on death row.

Charles Crawford, 59, died of lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman in retaliation for the 1993 murder, rape and abduction of Kristy Ray, a 20-year-old student at Northeast Mississippi Community College student.

The inmate spent his last day visiting family members and a minister, and eating a last meal consisting of a double cheeseburger, French fries, peach cobbler and chocolate ice cream. 

Given the chance to make a final statement, Crawford said, 'To my family, I love you. I'm at peace. I´ve got God´s peace,' and added, 'I´ll be in heaven.'

He also addressed Ray´s family, saying, 'To the victim´s family, true closure and true peace, you cannot reach that without God.'

'Thank you God, for giving me the peace that I have,' Crawford concluded, before closing his eyes, the Clarion Ledger reports. 

The execution then got underway at 6.01pm, prompting Crawford to swallow as the first drug of the three-drug protocol entered his veins.

Two minutes later, his chest was seen moving rhythmically and at 6.06pm, an unidentified man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses entered the execution chamber to conduct a court-ordered consciousness check.

The man performed a sternal rub and declared: 'In my professional opinion, this man is unconscious.' 

For the next four minutes, Crawford's mouth was seen moving slightly, appearing to quiver once.

Then, at 6.11pm, all movement stopped and Crawford was pronounced dead at 6.15pm. 

Ahead of the execution - the second this year in Mississippi -  Crawford was 'relaxed and ready to face today,' said Marc McClure, regional superintendent for the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Following the execution, McClure said 'it went as well as can be expected with this situation.

'We just take everybody and the victim's family in our prayers, and we ask that you do the same,' he said. 

Authorities have said Crawford - who was out on bond awaiting trial on separate aggravated assault and rape charges - abducted Ray from her parents´ home in northern Mississippi´s Tippah County on January 29, 1993.

When Ray's mother then came home, she found her daughter's car was gone and a handwritten ransom note was left on the table, according to court records. 

Crawford was arrested a day later and said he was returning from a hunting trip. He later told authorities he blacked out and did not recall killing Ray.

At the time of that arrest, Crawford was days away from going to trial on a separate assault charge stemming from an attack in 1991 in which Crawford was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl and hitting her friend with a hammer.

Despite his assertions that he had experienced blackouts and did not remember committing either the rape or the hammer attack, Crawford was found guilty of both charges in two separate trials.

His prior rape conviction was considered an 'aggravating circumstance' by jurors in Crawford´s capital murder trial, paving the way for his death sentence.

Crawford has since spent the past three decades trying unsuccessfully to overturn his death sentence.

With just hours to go before the execution, Crawford's attorneys filed an emergency motion with the state Supreme Court seeking a stay of execution.

They argued his 1994 conviction violated his constitutional rights because his defense team conceded guilt against his wishes. 

Mississippi Special Assistant Attorney General LaDonna Holland rejected the claim, however, calling the filing a 'last minute attempt' to delay the lawful execution.

The United States Supreme Court  also declined to hear his appeal on Wednesday, though Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She noted that a 2018 ruling by the high court held that lawyers cannot override a defendant´s explicit and unequivocal decision not to admit guilt at trial. Under that decision, Crawford could have proven that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated and would likely be entitled to a new trial, she wrote.

But Crawford´s convictions became final before that case was decided, and the court 'has not squarely resolved' whether the 2018 ruling is retroactive and applies in postconviction proceedings, Sotomayor wrote.

'The Court refuses to resolve that question, even though a man's life is in the balance,' she wrote.

In a statement released after the execution, the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel said he was executed without receiving a fair trial.

'Despite a legal system that failed him, Charles Crawford ('Chuck') spent every day in prison trying to be the best person, family member, friend and Christian he could be,' the statement read.

Krissy Nobile, the director of the office, also characterized Crawford as a respected, uplifting presence on death row. She said he worked inside the prison and advocated for other inmates.

The lethal injection was the third in two days in the U.S. after executions Tuesday in Florida and Missouri. A total of 38 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year.

There are six more executions scheduled to take place in 2025, the next being that of Richard Djerf, who was convicted of killing four members of a family in Arizona over 30 years ago.