Shawn Ryan Grell, the Arizona man who infamously burned his two-year-old daughter alive in 1999, has died in prison at age 50. The convicted killer was found dead in his cell at ASPC-Tucson on April 19, though authorities have not disclosed his cause of death, The New York Post reported.

A Christmas season horror

In December 1999, Grell picked up his daughter, Kristen Salem, from daycare under the pretense of viewing Christmas lights. Instead, he drove to a Mesa department store to purchase gasoline and a plastic can before heading to a remote desert area.

There, in an act described by courts as “especially heinous, cruel, and depraved,” Grell laid his sleeping daughter on the ground, doused her with gasoline, and set her ablaze. Kristen briefly awoke, stumbling 10 feet through flames before collapsing and dying.

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Chilling aftermath

Following the murder, Grell visited a convenience store to buy alcohol, telling the clerk he’d seen children burning a dog in a vacant lot. He later called police to confess, stating at a press conference:

“I took the gasoline, and I poured it on her. I took the match and threw it on her,” Grell admitted in a recorded interrogation.

Legal proceedings

Sentenced to death in 2001 for first-degree murder and burglary, Grell’s punishment was overturned in 2013 when the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled his execution would constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” due to his intellectual disability. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, where he remained until his death last month.

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