Sammy Crystal Perkins was executed today at Central...

Sammy Crystal Perkins was executed today at Central Prison in Raleigh, Perkins was convicted in 1993 of raping and smothering Jo Jo Moore to death in her grandmother's Hopkins Drive home. He was pronounced dead at 2:14 a.m. Perkins was the 1st to die from a new protocol for lethal injection recently adopted by the state. The new protocol changed the amount and order of the chemicals used. The change allows for more anesthetic to be used as the death unfolds. A court challenge had claimed the previous method left the possibility for the condemned to feel pain during execution. Perkins becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in North Carolina and the 48th in the USA.