A grisly case that took over national news years ago, involving a hitman hired to kill a Black Atlanta woman, now has a new development. The convicted killer is no longer sentenced to be executed. However, he’s not home free.
In 2009, now 68-year-old Cleveland Clark was convicted in the killing of 22-year-old Michelle “Sparkle” Reid Rai. The mother and former cheerleader was found stabbed and strangled to death in her home feet away from her infant daughter in 2000, per police. Investigators found that Clark’s motive for the killing wasn’t personal but rather a request from someone else - Rai’s father-in-law.
Prosecutors argued that one month after the woman married Ricky Rai, his father, Chiman, hired Clark to kill the woman because her race brought “shame” to the family, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Police said Chiman paid the hitman $10,000 for the murder.
Both Chiman and Clark were convicted in Rai’s murder along with other co-defendants including Clark’s brother. However, Clark was the only one who was sentenced to death, per NBC News.
Last year, a Fulton County Superior Court judge commuted Clark’s sentence from death row to life without parole with an additional 25 years to serve. Attorneys argue Clark had an IQ of 68 or 64, ruling him intellectually disabled. Therefore, it was unconstitutional to execute him.
Rai’s family were notified of Clark’s resentencing, per the AJC.
“Personally, I would have said he should have stayed on death row, but I went with what was recommended to me by people a little bit smarter than I was,” said Bennet Reid Jr., Rai’s father, via The AJC.
Family members told the Atlanta outlet they keep Rai’s memory alive through her surviving daughter, who was uninjured in the incident.
Oh, and if you’re still wondering about Chiman, he died in prison at age 83 in 2022, the report says.