White Executied For Killing Black

For only the second time since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, a white murderer was put to death Tuesday for killing a black person.

Kermit Smith Jr., 37, was executed by lethal injection for the 1980 rape and murder of Whelette Collins, a 20-year-old cheerleader at N.C. Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount. Authorities say Smith smashed her head between two cinder blocks while two other kidnapped cheerleaders were locked in a car trunk.