Execution scheduled March 5 for killer

Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004 | 8:42 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- An execution date of March 5 has been set at the Nevada State Prison for Daryl Mack, 45, convicted of the rape-strangulation of a Reno woman in her home in October 1988.

Attorneys for Mack have filed a petition in District Court in Reno to delay the execution. A spokeswoman for District Judge James Hardesty said the judge was out of town and has not seen the petition.

The execution date was set by Jackie Crawford, director of the state Department of Corrections. It could be postponed to allow Mack to pursue further court appeals.

In the Mack case, it was the first time a person had been convicted solely on DNA evidence in a murder case in Washoe County.

Mack was originally convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the strangulation of a woman, Kim Parks, in a Reno motel in 1994. He was serving his sentence when investigators linked him in 1998 to the killing of another woman, Betty Jane May.

He waived his jury trial and was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by a three-judge panel.

Earlier this month, District Judge Donald Mosley set the week of March 22 for the execution of Lawrence Colwell Jr., who robbed and murdered a man, Frank Rosenstock, 76, at the Tropicana in March 1994.

Colwell told the judge he did not want to appeal further.

The last execution in the state took place on April 21, 2001.