Was convicted of fatally beating Ronnie Waddell, 35, and James
Kepley, 57, in rural Davidson County on March 19, 1984. The two
homeless men were killed with a claw hammer. Laws was sentenced to
death on August 20, 1985. On July 26, 1989, the North Carolina
Supreme Court affirmed Laws' death sentence on direct appeal. Wayne
Laws is the inmate who has spent the longest time on North Carolina
death row.