ATLANTA (AP) — A late April execution date has been set for man convicted in the 1998 triple murders of a central Georgia trucking company owner and his two children, authorities said Thursday.
Daniel Anthony Lucas is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. on April 27 at the state prison in Jackson, said a statement from Commissioner Homer Bryson of the Department of Corrections. Georgia executes inmates using an injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital.
Lucas, 37, received the death sentence in 1999 for the killings of Steven Moss, 37, his 11-year-old son Bryan and 15-year-old daughter Kristin, who interrupted a burglary at their home near Macon in central Georgia.
Another man convicted in the murders, Brandon Joseph Rhode, was put to death in September 2010. His execution was delayed by about a week after Rhode tried to kill himself by slashing his arms and throat just hours before he was initially set to be executed.
Lucas and Rhode were searching the Moss home for valuables in April 1998 when Bryan Moss saw them through a front window, and entered through a back door armed with a baseball bat, prosecutors have said. They say the two then wrestled Bryan to a chair and Lucas shot him in the shoulder.
When the two men heard Kristin approaching the house, Rhode forced her to sit on a chair and shot her twice with a pistol, according to court records. Rhode ambushed Steven Moss when he arrived home, shooting him with the same pistol. Lucas later shot each of the victims again to make sure they were dead, according to the records.
Moss' wife, Gerri Ann, discovered the bodies when she returned home from work.
Georgia has already executed three inmates this year and a fourth is scheduled to die Tuesday.
