Ex-death row inmate gets life in woman’s death

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former South Carolina death row inmate has been sentenced to life in prison for strangling a woman in 2006.

A judge on Thursday handed down that sentence after 35-year-old Raymondeze Rivera pleaded guilty to killing Kwana Burns.

Rivera was originally sentenced to death after his 2010 conviction. But the state Supreme Court overturned that sentence in February, saying that Rivera should have been allowed to testify at trial.

Burns’ body was discovered in her Anderson home, bound with her son’s jump rope. Her daughter was asleep near her, unharmed.

Rivera is already serving a life sentence in another Anderson mother’s death. At his trial in Asha Wiley’s death, Rivera testified he had gone to Anderson to kill Burns, and then killed Wiley because she knew too much.