<p>With his final words, Eddie Albert Crawford said his execution was justified if it brings resolution to the family of a 2-year-old niece he was convicted of raping and murdering.</p><p>"There hasn't been a time in the last 21 years I wouldn't have laid down my life for little Leslie. I don't remember anything," Crawford said Monday night from the gurney he would die on minutes later. "If this will give them peace it was well worth it."</p><p>Crawford, 57, claimed he blacked out after heavy drinking and doesn't remember what happened.</p><p>Prosecutors said he sneaked into the house and kidnapped the girl, Leslie Michelle English, after her mother _ his sister-in-law _ refused to have sex with him.</p><p>About 25 of Leslie's family and friends sang "Amazing Grace" on the state prison grounds when they got word Crawford was pronounced dead at 7:49 p.m. When a medical examiner's van carried Crawford's body out of the prison, they clapped and cheered.</p><p>"It was the most horrible death you can imagine for a little girl. It puts chills in me," said Peggy English Ridgeway, a cousin of Leslie's. "It will lessen the pain. I don't think it will ever go away entirely."</p><p>Crawford took 12 minutes to die after sitting on death row for 20 years for the 1983 crime in Griffin. In the days leading up to his execution by injection, defense attorneys sought last-minute DNA testing of additional hairs found on Leslie's body.</p><p>The attorneys hoped the courts would find that prisoners have a constitutional right to have such existing evidence tested.</p><p>The U.S. Supreme Court wouldn't stop the execution earlier Monday, although three of the court's more liberal members supported giving Crawford a stay. Another request for a stay was denied on a 5-4 vote at 7:35 p.m.</p><p>Lower courts have ruled that additional testing of hairs would not clear Crawford's name even if it found the hairs didn't belong to him.</p><p>About 15 death penalty protesters also were present on the prison's grounds. They held signs saying, "No killing in my name" and "Stop executions now."</p><p>"We have means of keeping people safe without the killing of more people," said MaryRuth Weir of Barnesville. "Now we just have another set of victims."</p><p>Crawford, a Vietnam veteran, was put to death after two trials that both resulted in death sentences and a seven-month delay since his execution was originally scheduled for December. The Georgia Supreme Court considered appeals asking for additional DNA testing but later allowed the execution to go forward.</p><p>Crawford was linked to the crime by other hair and carpet fibers found on the girl's body, as well as her blood found in his car. Leslie was dumped in nearby woods after she was kidnapped from her home.</p><p>During the injection, Crawford took a deep breath, gulped and yawned. His breathing grew progressively shallow before he died.</p><p>"I'm just proud as I can be, proud the man had to pay the price. He committed the crime," said Danny English, Leslie's uncle. "It wasn't about DNA. They just wanted to buy him a little more time."</p><p>Crawford's lawyers hoped DNA testing of the new hairs would point to one of three men convicted or accused of child molestation, including some family members, who may have had access to the girl that night.</p><p>The hairs will be tested in the coming weeks by the Georgia Innocence Project even though the execution went forward, said Aimee Maxwell, the project's executive director.</p><p>Earlier in the day, Crawford was served a last meal _ a standard institutional tray of barbecue pork, black-eyed peas, a vegetable medley, cole slaw, a roll, peach cobbler and a grape drink. He did not eat any of it, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Peggy Chapman.</p><p>The execution was the second in Georgia this month and the state's 36th since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.</p>
