(credit: CBS 11 News)
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Jurors sentenced Franklin Davis of Mesquite to death Saturday morning. Davis admitted in court to killing 16-year-old Shania Gray, describing how he lured her into his car outside her school, shot her and dumped her body in a river. Gray told authorities before her death that Davis raped her when she was 14.
Davis claims he killed Gray out of revenge and hatred, not to obstruct the sexual assault case that was nearing trial. But the murder happened about a month before Gray was set to be a witness against Davis in the case.
Gray’s mother took the stand during the capital murder trial. “My daughter was brutally taken away because of someone who was a coward, having my daughter’s integrity questioned…” said Sherry Gray-Green, “All of this loss is just compound.”
The teenager was remembered after her death as a vivacious, friendly girl who often played basketball in the family driveway. Most people did not know she was at the center of the sexual assault case against Davis.
Her mother told Mesquite police that Davis sexually assaulted Gray while she was baby-sitting his children. Davis, known by the nickname “Wish,” exposed himself and had sex with the girl four separate times in 2011, according to a police affidavit.
CBS 11 News reports that Davis said from the stand, “She lied. She ruined my life. She took everything from me, everything I work so hard to get. She took it.”
Defense attorneys presented a St. Louis police detective during the capital murder trial who spoke about Davis’ traumatic childhood.
Davis continued to deny the rape allegations at his murder trial..
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