Lauretha Varid police officer - A 90's Philadelphia rapper has been scheduled to die by lethal injection on the 8th of January 2015. Christopher Rooney aka Cool C was convicted of murdering a police officer during a 1996 botched bank robbery.
Reports indicate that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed the death warrant on Friday. Cool C would be the first person to be legally executed by the state of Pennsylvania since 1999.
Cool C, 44, has served 18 years in the Pennsylvania's State Correctional Institution at Greene since he was found guilty of murdering Lauretha Varid, a police officer.
Local sources say the 43-years-old police officer Lauretha Varid was a nine year veteran in the force and a single mother of two children. She was gunned down by Cool C after she responded to the silent alarm of a PNC Bank located on Rising Sun Ave, where the rapper and two others were robbing.
Lauretha Varid died from the wounds she sustained after being shot in the abdomen.
The attempted bank heist, which occurred on Jan 2, 1996, went wrong after cops raided the bank. In an attempt to escape, Cool C reportedly shot Lauretha Varid before engaging in a brief gun battle with the other cops on the scene. He later fled with his two accomplices in a getaway vehicle, but was later identified and arrested.
This is not the first time Cool C's execution date has been scheduled. On January 10, 2006 Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell approved his execution by legal injection on March 9, 2006. However, Judge Gary Glazer ordered for the execution to be stayed because of unresolved post-conviction litigation.
Cool C's accomplices in the bank robbery and murder of Lauretha Varid--McGlone and Mark Canty--are both serving life imprisonment sentences.
