Dallas man on death row for killing ex-girlfriend is set for 2018 execution

A Dallas man on death row for the slaying of his ex-girlfriend has received an execution date for early next year.

William Rayford, 64, is scheduled for lethal injection Jan. 30, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark.

Rayford was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend, 44-year-old Carol Lynn Thomas Hall. Her body was dumped into a creek after she was beaten, stabbed and strangled.

At the time of Hall’s death, Rayford was on parole after serving eight years of a 23-year sentence for the slaying of his wife. He was released early under a law that allowed inmates to combine “good time” earned in prison with time served.

Rayford was one of more than 32,000 prisoners released early under the law, which was passed in 1977 to ease prison crowding issues. That law was abolished in 1997.