Utah death-row inmate featured in best-selling book dies

BRADY McCOMBS Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah death-row inmate whose double-murder case was featured in the book "Under the Banner of Heaven" and who was nearing execution by firing squad has died of natural causes, prison officials said Monday. Ron Lafferty, 78, died at the state prison in the Salt Lake City suburb of Draper, Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kaitlin Felsted said in a statement. His case became well known from Jon Krakauer's 2003 book about radical offshoots of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Krakauer also wrote "Into Thin Air" and "Into the Wild." Lafferty was convicted in the 1984 slayings of his sister-in-law and her baby daughter, which he carried out with his brother. He claimed he received a revelation from God to kill