Man Sentenced to Life in Stabbing Death

March 30, 2021 – A Memphis man who beat and repeatedly stabbed his girlfriend in front of her young daughter in 2016 pled guilty to first-degree murder Tuesday and was sentenced to life in prison, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Defendant Raymond Lynn Clark, 45, already is under a life sentence in Georgia for beating and raping a woman in Atlanta three months after he fled there following the Memphis attack.

He pled guilty before Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Chris Craft to killing Zeneatrice Crawford, 40, on June 24, 2016, during an argument in the front seat of her car.

Her 11-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old girlfriend witnessed the attack from the back seat.

Crawford was stabbed more than 50 times by Clark who then drove to 700 block of Whitney Avenue in the Frayser area and left her body in an overgrown area near a vacant house.

After tying up the two young girls and leaving them at another vacant house in the 1700 block of Alta Vista near Frayser Park, Clark drove to Atlanta where he worked for a short time at a car wash in DeKalb County.

On Aug. 25, 2016, he beat, raped and kidnapped a 32-year-old woman he met there. He was tried and convicted in December of 2017, and was sentenced to life in prison.

The Memphis case was handled by Chief Prosecutor Eric Christensen of the District Attorneys Special Victims Unit (SPU) and by Asst. Dist. Atty. Abby Wallace of the District Attorney’s Special Prosecution Unit.

The SVU prosecutes cases of rape, aggravated rape, child sexual abuse, severe physical abuse of child victims, elder abuse and vulnerable adult abuse. The unit was created in 2010 as an expansion of the multi-agency Child Protection Investigative Team (CPIT).

The SPU seeks maximum sentencing for repeat felony offenders.

Clark has seven prior felony convictions.