Clay family murders
| Clay family murders | |
|---|---|
Family photo of Angela Clay, Latoya Clay, and Lakeisha Clay c. 1987 | |
| Location | Nashville, Tennessee, United States |
| Date | March 28, 1988 |
Attack type | Murders by shooting |
| Victims | Angela Clay, 29 Latoya Clay, 9 Lakeisha Clay, 6 |
| Verdict | Guilty |
| Convictions | First-degree murder (x3) |
| Sentence | Death (Lakeisha's murder) Life imprisonment (x2; Latoya and Angela's murder) |
| Convicted | Byron Lewis Black, 32 |
The Clay family murders occurred on March 28, 1988, when 29-year-old Angela Clay (June 10, 1958 – March 28, 1988) and her two daughters, Latoya Clay (April 4, 1978 – March 28, 1988), age nine, and Lakeisha Clay (March 8, 1982 – March 28, 1988; sometimes spelled Lakesha Clay), age six, were murdered inside their house in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The perpetrator, Byron Lewis Black (March 23, 1956 – August 5, 2025), who was Angela's boyfriend, attacked the Clays while he was on work release for a prior incident in which he shot and wounded Angela's estranged husband.
Black was found guilty of all three counts of first-degree murder in March 1989 and was subsequently sentenced to death for murdering Lakeisha, while receiving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of Angela and Latoya. He appealed his conviction and sentence, and after exhausting his appeals, he sought to have his death sentence commuted on the grounds of intellectual disability, but these appeals were also denied.
More than 37 years after the murders, Black was executed via lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on August 5, 2025.