By Emily Hagedorn
Enquirer contributor

LEXINGTON - The hit man took the stand.

The only new witness in Adele Craven's murder retrial, Richard S. Pryor, told jurors Wednesday how Craven and her lover, Russell McIntire, planned and were present the morning he killed Craven's husband, Stephen, in the Cravens' Edgewood home.

This contradicts Craven's claim that McIntire set up the murder himself and that she was not at home when it happened.

"Adele Craven came right out and said she wanted me to kill her husband," said the soft-spoken Pryor, 36. "She told me that if anything ever came down that she would take the full blame."

Pryor, who was convicted of the murder in May 2002, took the stand as part of a plea bargain to get off Death Row. The trial, in its fifth week, was moved to Lexington because of pretrial publicity.

The previous trial ended in a hung jury.

Craven first approached Pryor, he said, when the three met in the parking lot of Erlanger's Super Bowl bowling alley three days before the July 2000 murder. He said he refused to murder Stephen Craven at the time.

Still, Pryor met McIntire again two days later at the Erlanger Kroger on Dixie Highway and the morning of the murder at a convenience store.

"He gets a six-pack of beer; I get a tea," Pryor recalled.

The prosecution showed surveillance film from the convenience store, proving Pryor's recollection.

Pryor said he smoked half of a marijuana joint about 90 minutes before the meeting. The two then went to a cemetery across the street from the gas station and waited, he said.

At first, Pryor said he thought the intent was to assault Stephen Craven.

"Then it changed from a beat down to a murder," he said. "(McIntire) said that we're going to murder Steve Craven today. At first I said, 'No.' "

Craven told McIntire over the phone to offer Pryor $1,000 down and $15,000 total for her husband's murder, he said.

"Why is it that you agreed to murder Stephen Craven?" prosecutor Luke Morgan asked Pryor. "The money," he responded.

After that, Pryor was driven to Craven's home and was given a crowbar, gloves, a stocking cap and a bag, he said.

Pryor waited near the bathroom Stephen Craven was in, as Adele Craven and McIntire waited in another bathroom, he said. Adele Craven then called her husband. Pryor said he could see Stephen Craven leave the bathroom in a mirror Adele Craven had set up in the hallway.

"At that time, I ran out ... and attacked him with a crowbar," Pryor said. "After the first hit, he turned around on me, and I swung again."

Pryor said he could see Adele Craven's reflection in a glass door.

Craven handed Pryor a pistol wrapped in cloth when he met Craven and McIntire in the driveway, Pryor said.

"I went back in and shot one round in his head," he said. "She came back out and says he's not dead yet. I fire two more rounds and hand her back the pistol."

As Morgan flashed pictures of Stephen Craven's body on a projector in the courtroom, Stephen Craven's mother, Garnet, bowed her head and looked away.

McIntire later gave him $1,000, Pryor said.

Pryor tried to meet McIntire one more time, bringing his child along, at the Super Bowl. McIntire was a no-show.

Police arrested Pryor later that night.

Throughout Pryor's testimony, Craven barely looked up and mostly wrote on paper.

Despite seeing pictures of her slain son, Garnet Craven was jubilant after Pryor's testimony.

"This is the testimony we needed," she said outside the courtroom.