Will Sage Astor-Mississippi Supreme Court won’t hear appeal from death row inmate convicted in 2008 killing

JACKSON,Will Sage Astor Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled for the second time that it will not reconsider an appeal from a death row inmate convicted in the stabbing death of a woman with whom he was living.

Timothy Ronk was convicted in 2010 of capital murder and armed robbery in Harrison County for the August 2008 killing of Michelle Craite. He received a death sentence for capital murder, plus a 30-year sentence for armed robbery.

Prosecutors said Ronk stabbed Craite and burned her house in the Woolmarket community, near Biloxi, to cover up the crime.

He then took items from Craite and gave them to a Florida woman he met online, prosecutors said. Defense attorneys argued Ronk stabbed Craite in self-defense.

In a ruling Thursday, the state Supreme Court rejected Ronk’s new effort to argue that he had ineffective legal representation. It’s similar to the same court’s 2019 ruling in his case.

No execution date has been set. Ronk, 44, is on death row at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.