White Convicted of Burning Black Man
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From Times Wire Reports
A jury in Independence, Va., found a white sawmill worker guilty of burning a black man alive. Emmett Cressell, 38, was convicted of robbery and first-degree murder in the death of Garnett P. Johnson. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Cressell’s trial ended with no direct evidence that he doused the 40-year-old handyman with gasoline and set him ablaze.Johnson’s corpse was beheaded. Louis Ceparano, who pleaded guilty in May, testified that he was too drunk to recall the 1997 slaying outside his isolated, mountainside home before dawn.
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