Daniel Anthony Lucas faces April 27 execution in Georgia

ATLANTA — Convicted triple murderer Daniel Anthony Lucas is scheduled to be executed at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, April 27 at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Ga.

Lucas was sentenced to death in 1999 for the April 1998 murders of Steven Moss and his two children, 11-year-old Bryan and 15-year old Kristin. Lucas requested a last meal consisting of orange juice, a meat pizza, steak and cheese calzone, stuffed portobello mushroom and a chef salad with ranch dressing and honey mustard dressing.

According to prosecutors, Lucas and another man, Brandon Joseph Rhode, twice burglarized the home of Steven and Gerri Ann Moss on April 23, 1998. Rhode was executed in September 2010, and he did not offer up any last words and did not partake in a prayer before his execution, according to a media report at the time.

A total of 63 men and one woman have been executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. If executed, Lucas will be the 42nd inmate put to death by lethal injection.

Media witnesses for the execution are: Deborah Lurie Smith of The Jones County News, Rhonda Cook of The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Kate Brumback of The Associated Press, Randall Savage of 13WMAZ and Eric Mock of WGXA-TV.

There are a total of 64 men currently on death row in Georgia. If the execution of Lucas proceeds, it would be the fifth so far in 2016; previous executions are:

• The state on April 12 executed Kenneth Earl Fults for the 1996 murder of 19-year-old Cathy Bounds.
• On March 31, the state executed Joshua Daniel Bishop for the June 1994 slaying of 43-year-old Leverett Lewis Morrison.
• On Feb. 18, Travis Clinton Hittson was executed for the 1992 murder and dismembering of fellow Navy sailor Conway Utterbeck in Houston County.
• On Feb. 3, 72-year-old Brandon Astor Jones was executed for the June 17, 1979, shooting death of Roger Dennis Tackett, a Smyrna, Ga., convenience store manager.