missouri execution | My Crime Library

Amber McLaughlin Execution Scheduled For Jan 3 2023

Amber McLaughlin is scheduled to be executed by the State of Missouri on January 3 2023. According to court documents Amber McLaughlin (Scott McLaughlin) for the sexual assault and murder of her ex girlfriend. The victim, Beverly Guenther, had a restraining order against Amber McLaughlin at the time of her murder. Beverly Guenther would be reported missing and police would discover a knife beside her car and a trail of blood. The next day Amber McLaughlin would bring police to Beverly Guenther remains. Amber McLaughlin would be tried and convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

Amber McLaughlin would be executed by lethal injection on January 3 2023

DOC ID	501249
Offender Name	Scott A McLaughlin
Race	White
Sex	Male
Date of Birth	01/13/1973
Height/Weight	5’10” / 221
Hair/Eyes	Brown / Brown
Assigned Location	Potosi Correctional Center
Address	11593 State Highway O, Mineral Point, MO 63660

Sentence Summary	Death {(death, Life, Life CS), 7 CC} Registration Required
Active Offenses	MURDER 1ST DEGREE; ARMED CRIMINAL ACTION; FORC RAPE-INJ/WEP->1PRSN/VIC<12
Completed Offenses	BURGLARY 2ND DEG
Aliases	Scott A McLaughin; Scott A McLaughlin; Scott McLaughlin

Amber McLaughlin More News

Unless Missouri Gov. Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first openly transgender woman executed in the U.S. She is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for killing a former girlfriend in 2003.

McLaughlin’s attorney, Larry Komp, said there are no court appeals pending.

The clemency request focuses on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard in her trial. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the clemency petition. It says she suffers from depression and attempted suicide multiple times.

There is no known case of an openly transgender inmate being executed in the U.S. before, according to the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center. A friend in prison says she saw McLaughlin’s personality blossom during her gender transition.

Before transitioning, McLaughlin was in a relationship with girlfriend Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin would show up at the suburban St. Louis office where the 45-year-old Guenther worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records. Guenther obtained a restraining order, and police officers occasionally escorted her to her car after work.

Guenther’s neighbors called police the night of Nov. 20, 2003, when she failed to return home. Officers went to the office building, where they found a broken knife handle near her car and a trail of blood. A day later, McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, where the body had been dumped.

McLaughlin was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury deadlocked on the sentence. A court in 2016 ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.

One person who knew Amber before she transitioned is Jessica Hicklin, 43, who spent 26 years in prison for a drug-related killing in western Missouri in 1995. She was 16. Because of her age when the crime occurred, she was granted release in January 2022.

Hicklin, 43, began transitioning while in prison and in 2016 sued the Missouri Department of Corrections, challenging a policy that prohibited hormone therapy for inmates who weren’t receiving it before being incarcerated. She won the lawsuit in 2018 and became a mentor to other transgender inmates, including Amber McLaughlin.

Though imprisoned together for around a decade, Hicklin said McLaughlin was so shy they rarely interacted. But as McLaughlin began transitioning about three years ago, she turned to Hicklin for guidance on issues such as mental health counseling and getting help to ensure her safety inside a male-dominated maximum-security prison.

“There’s always paperwork and bureaucracy, so I spent time helping her learn to file the right things and talk to the right people,” Hicklin said.

In the process, a friendship developed.

“We would sit down once a week and have what I referred to as girl talk,” Hicklin said. “She always had a smile and a dad joke. If you ever talked to her, it was always with the dad jokes.”

They also discussed the challenges a transgender inmate faces in a male prison — things like how to obtain feminine items, dealing with rude comments, and staying safe.

McLaughlin still had insecurities, especially about her well-being, Hicklin said.

“Definitely a vulnerable person,” Hicklin said. “Definitely afraid of being assaulted or victimized, which is more common for trans folks in Department of Corrections.”

The only woman ever executed in Missouri was Bonnie B. Heady, put to death on Dec. 18, 1953, for kidnapping and killing a 6-year-old boy. Heady was executed in the gas chamber, side by side with the other kidnapper and killer, Carl Austin Hall.

Nationally, 18 people were executed in 2022, including two in Missouri. Kevin Johnson, 37, was put to death Nov. 29 for the ambush killing of a Kirkwood, Missouri, police officer. Carmen Deck was executed in May for killing James and Zelma Long during a robbery at their home in De Soto, Missouri.

Another Missouri inmate, Leonard Taylor, is scheduled to die Feb. 7 for killing his girlfriend and her three young children.

https://news.yahoo.com/us-may-execute-first-openly-161454812.html

Amber McLaughlin Execution

A Missouri inmate was put to death Tuesday for a 2003 killing in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S.

Amber McLaughlin, 49, was convicted of stalking and killing a former girlfriend, then dumping the body near the Mississippi River in St. Louis. McLaughlin’s fate was sealed earlier Tuesday when Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined a clemency request.

Amber McLaughlin spoke quietly with a spiritual adviser at her side as the fatal dose of pentobarbital was injected. McLaughlin breathed heavily a couple of times, then shut her eyes. She was pronounced dead a few minutes later.

“I am sorry for what I did,” McLaughlin said in a final, written, statement. “I am a loving and caring person.”

A database on the website for the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center shows that 1,558 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-1970s. All but 17 of those put to death were men. The center said there are no known previous cases of an openly transgender inmate being executed. McLaughlin began transitioning about three years ago at the state prison in Potosi.

The clemency petition cited McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard during her trial. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the petition. It cited severe depression that resulted in multiple suicide attempts, both as a child and as an adult.

The petition also included reports citing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a condition that causes anguish and other symptoms as a result of a disparity between a person’s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth. But McLaughlin’s sexual identity was “not the main focus” of the clemency request, her attorney, Larry Komp, said.

In 2003, long before transitioning, McLaughlin was in a relationship with Beverly Guenther. After they stopped dating, Amber McLaughlin would show up at the suburban St. Louis office where the 45-year-old Guenther worked, sometimes hiding inside the building, according to court records. Guenther obtained a restraining order, and police officers occasionally escorted her to her car after work.

Guenther’s neighbors called police the night of Nov. 20, 2003, when she failed to return home. Officers went to the office building, where they found a broken knife handle near her car and a trail of blood. A day later, Amber McLaughlin led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, where the body had been dumped. Authorities said she had been raped and stabbed repeatedly with a steak knife.

Amber McLaughlin was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury deadlocked on the sentence. Komp said Missouri and Indiana are the only states that allow a judge to sentence someone to death.

A court in 2016 ordered a new sentencing hearing, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.

“McLaughlin terrorized Ms. Guenther in the final years of her life, but we hope her family and loved ones may finally have some peace,” Parson said in a written statement after the execution.

Amber McLaughlin began transitioning about three years ago, according to Jessica Hicklin, who spent 26 years in prison for a drug-related killing before being released a year ago. Hicklin, now 43, sued the Missouri Department of Corrections, challenging a policy that prohibited hormone therapy for inmates who weren’t receiving it before being incarcerated. She won the lawsuit in 2018 and became a mentor to other transgender inmates, including McLaughlin. Amber McLaughlin did not receive hormone treatments, however, Komp said

Hicklin described Amber McLaughlin as a painfully shy person who came out of her shell after she decided to transition.

“She always had a smile and a dad joke,” Hicklin said. “If you ever talked to her, it was always with the dad jokes.”

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has estimated there are 3,200 transgender inmates in the nation’s prisons and jails. Perhaps the best-known case of a transgender prisoner seeking treatment was that of Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who served seven years in federal prison for leaking government documents to Wikileaks until President Barack Obama commuted the sentence in 2017. The Army agreed to pay for hormone treatments for Manning in 2015

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice wrote in a court filing that state prison officials must treat an inmate’s gender identity condition just as they would treat other medical or mental health conditions, regardless of when the diagnosis occurred.

Nationally, 18 people were executed in 2022, including two in Missouri. Kevin Johnson was put to death in November for the ambush killing of a Kirkwood, Missouri, police officer. Carman Deck was executed in May for killing James and Zelma Long during a robbery at their home in De Soto, Missouri.

Another Missouri inmate, Leonard Taylor, is scheduled to die Feb. 7 for killing his girlfriend and her three young children.

https://www.cleveland.com/nation/2023/01/missouri-executes-transgender-woman-for-2003-murder.html

Kevin Johnson Missouri Execution Scheduled For Today

Kevin Johnson is scheduled to be executed today by the State of Missouri for the murder of a police officer. According to court documents Kevin Johnson would fatally shoot Officer William McEntee in 2005. Apparently Kevin Johnson blamed the officer for his brother’s death. Kevin Johnson was at home when a warrant was served on him and his 12 year old brother ran to the house next door. The 12 year old who had major health issues would suffer a cardiac episode and die. Kevin Johnson would later that night shoot and kill Officer William McEntee. Kevin Johnson lawyers do not dispute that he killed the Officer but are trying to get a reprieve saying racism tainted the trial. Also Kevin Johnson 19 year old daughter is not allowed to attend his execution as she does not meet the age requirement

Kevin Johnson More News

A Missouri inmate convicted of ambushing and killing a St. Louis area police officer he blamed in the death of his younger brother was scheduled to be executed Tuesday, barring a last-minute intervention.

Kevin Johnson’s legal team doesn’t deny that he killed Officer William McEntee in 2005, but contended in an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court that he was sentenced to death in part because he is Black. But in a 5-2 ruling late Monday, the state Supreme Court denied a stay.

The U.S. Supreme Court also declined a stay request last week, and Gov. Mike Parson on Monday announced he would not grant clemency.

“The violent murder of any citizen, let alone a Missouri law enforcement officer, should be met only with the fullest punishment state law allows,” Parson, a Republican and a former county sheriff, said in a statement. “Through Mr. Johnson’s own heinous actions, he stole the life of Sergeant McEntee and left a family grieving, a wife widowed, and children fatherless. Clemency will not be granted.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if other appeals were planned. A message left early Tuesday with Johnson’s lawyer was not immediately returned.

Johnson, 37, faces execution Tuesday evening at the state prison in Bonne Terre. He would be the second Missouri man put to death in 2022 and the 17th nationally.

McEntee, 43, was a 20-year veteran of the police department in Kirkwood, a St. Louis suburb. The father of three was among the officers sent to Johnson’s home on July 5, 2005, to serve a warrant for his arrest. Johnson was on probation for assaulting his girlfriend, and police believed he had violated probation.

Johnson saw officers arrive and awoke his 12-year-old brother, Joseph “Bam Bam” Long, who ran to a house next door. Once there, the boy, who suffered from a congenital heart defect, collapsed and began having a seizure.

Johnson testified at trial that McEntee kept his mother from entering the house to aid his brother, who died a short time later at a hospital.

That same evening, McEntee returned to the neighborhood to check on unrelated reports of fireworks being shot off. A court filing from the Missouri attorney general’s office said McEntee was in his car questioning three children when Johnson shot him through the open passenger-side window, striking the officer’s leg, head and torso. Johnson then got into the car and took McEntee’s gun.

The court filing said Kevin Johnson walked down the street and told his mother that McEntee “let my brother die” and “needs to see what it feels like to die.” Though she told him, “That’s not true,” Kevin Johnson returned to the shooting scene and found McEntee alive, on his knees near the patrol car. Johnson shot McEntee in the back and in the head, killing him.

Johnson’s lawyers have previously asked the courts to intervene for other reasons, including a history of mental illness and his age — 19 — at the time of the crime. Courts have increasingly moved away from sentencing teen offenders to death since the Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime.

But a broader focus of appeals has been on alleged racial bias. In October, St. Louis Circuit Judge Mary Elizabeth Ott appointed a special prosecutor to review the case. The special prosecutor, E.E. Keenan, filed a motion earlier this month to vacate the death sentence, stating that race played a “decisive factor” in the death sentence.

Ott declined to set aside the death penalty.

Keenan told the state Supreme Court that former St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s office handled five cases involving the deaths of police officers during his 28 years in office. McCulloch sought the death penalty in the four cases involving Black defendants, but did not seek death in the one case where the defendant was white, the file said.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Crane responded that “a fair jury determined he deserves the death penalty.”

McCulloch does not have a listed phone number and could not be reached for comment.

Johnson’s 19-year-old daughter, Khorry Ramey, had sought to witness the execution, but a state law prohibits anyone under 21 from observing the process. Courts have declined to step in on Ramey’s behalf.

The U.S. saw 98 executions in 1999 but the number has dropped dramatically in recent years. Missouri already has two scheduled for early 2023. Convicted killer Scott McLaughlin is scheduled to die on Jan. 3, and convicted killer Leonard Taylor’s execution is set for Feb. 7.

https://www.courttv.com/news/missouri-prepares-to-execute-man-for-killing-officer-in-2005/

Kevin Johnson Execution

Kevin Johnson – who murdered a Kirkwood, Missouri, police officer in 2005 but claimed racial bias in his prosecution – was executed Tuesday night by lethal injection.

Kevin Johnson, 37, was pronounced dead at 7:40 p.m. CT. He didn’t give a final statement, according to Missouri Department of Corrections spokesperson Karen Pojmann.

The execution went ahead after the US Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, according to the court’s website.

On Monday, the Missouri Supreme Court had denied Johnson’s request for a stay after hearing arguments that racial discrimination played a role in his prosecution.

Mary McEntee, the widow of Kirkwood Police Sgt. William McEntee, said her husband was killed on his hands and knees in front of people he dedicated his life to serve.

“When he left for work that day, we could not imagine that he would be executed by someone he gave his life to protect,” she said at a media briefing Tuesday evening. “Bill didn’t get to fight for his life. He didn’t have the chance to be heard before a jury, to decide whether he would live or die.”

She also thanked the prosecutors who put in the “hard work and endless hours … for justice for Bill.

The execution was not witnessed by Johnson’s 19-year-old daughter, who had failed this month to get a federal court to prevent the state from executing her father unless she was permitted to be a witness. Missouri law bars people younger than 21 from witnessing the proceeding.

Pojmann said Kevin Johnson met with his daughter earlier Tuesday.

On Monday, the Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments in two requests for a stay: one by Johnson, who was Black, and the other by a special prosecutor appointed at the request of the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which secured Johnson’s conviction on a first-degree murder charge and death sentence for the murder of McEntee.

Both requests sought a stay so claims of racial prejudice could be heard by the St. Louis County Circuit Court, which previously denied a motion by the special prosecutor to vacate Johnson’s conviction, saying there was not enough time before Johnson’s scheduled execution to hold a hearing.

“There simply is nothing here that Johnson has not raised (and that this Court has not rejected) before and, even if there were, Kevin Johnson offers no basis for raising any new or re-packaged versions of these oft-rejected claims at this late date,” the Monday ruling said.

Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, also on Monday denied a request for clemency from Johnson’s attorneys.

“Mr. Johnson has received every protection afforded by the Missouri and United States Constitutions, and Mr. Johnson’s conviction and sentence remain for his horrendous and callous crime,” Parson said in a statement. “The State of Missouri will carry out Mr. Johnson’s sentence according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”

A defense attorney for Kevin Johnson decried Monday’s state Supreme Court ruling as a “complete disregard for the law in this case.”

“The Prosecutor in this case had requested that the Court stop the execution based on the compelling evidence he uncovered this past month establishing that Mr. Johnson was sentenced to death because he is Black,” lawyer Shawn Nolan said in a statement. “The Missouri Supreme Court unconscionably refused to simply pause Mr. Johnson’s execution date so that the Prosecutor could present this evidence to the lower court, who refused to consider it in the first instance given the press of time.”

Meantime, attorneys for Kevin Johnson argued in court records that racial discrimination played a role in his prosecution, pointing in their motion for a stay to “long-standing and pervasive racial bias” in St. Louis County prosecutors’ “handling of this case and other death-eligible prosecutions, including the office’s decisions of which offense to charge, which penalty to seek, and which jurors to strike.”

Per their request, the prosecuting attorney sought the death penalty against four of five defendants tried for the killing of a police officer while in office – all of them Black, while the fifth was White. In the case with a White defendant, Johnson’s request says, the prosecutor invited defense attorneys to submit mitigation evidence that might persuade the office not to seek death – an opportunity not afforded the Black defendants.

Additionally, they pointed to a study by a University of North Carolina political scientist of 408 death-eligible homicide prosecutions during this prosecutor’s tenure that found the office largely sought the death penalty when the victims were White.

Those claims appear supported by a special prosecutor, who was appointed to the case last month after the St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office cited a conflict of interest. The special prosecutor, Edward E.E. Keenan, similarly “determined that racist prosecution techniques infected Mr. Johnson’s conviction and death sentence,” he wrote in his own request for a stay.

The special prosecutor found “clear and convincing evidence of racial bias by the trial prosecutor,” he wrote in the request, citing similar evidence to that listed by Johnson’s attorneys in their request for a stay.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office argued against a stay, saying the claims were without merit. The special prosecutor’s “unproven claims,” the AG’s office said in a brief, do not amount to a concession of wrongdoing by the state, which stands by the conviction.

“The McEntee family has waited long enough for justice,” the brief said, “and every day longer that they must wait is a day they are denied the chance to finally make peace with their loss.”

Bob McCulloch, the longtime St. Louis prosecuting attorney who was voted out of office in 2018 after 27 years, has denied he treated Black and White defendants differently.

“Show me a similar case where the victim was Black and I didn’t ask for death,” he was quoted as saying by St. Louis Public Radio earlier this month about his time in office. “And then we have something to talk about. But that case just doesn’t exist.”

Kevin Johnson was sentenced to die for the July 5, 2005, murder of McEntee, 43, who was called to Johnson’s neighborhood in response to a report of fireworks.

Earlier that day, Johnson’s 12-year-old brother had died after having a seizure at their family’s home, according to court records. Police were there at the time of the seizure, seeking to serve a warrant against Kevin Johnson, then 19, for a probation violation.

Kevin Johnson blamed the police, including McEntee, for his brother’s death. And when McEntee returned to the neighborhood later that day, Johnson approached the sergeant’s patrol car, accused him of killing his brother and opened fire.

He left behind a wife, a daughter and two sons, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/us/kevin-johnson-missouri-supreme-court

Allen Nicklasson Missouri Execution

Allen Nicklasson was executed by the State of Missouri for the murder of a man that stopped to help. According to court documents Allen Nicklasson, Dennis Skillicorn and Tim DeGraffenreid decided to drive to Kansas City to buy drugs and along the way there car broke down. The three men robbed a house and stole guns and money. When the victim saw their car pulled over to the side of the road he stopped to help however he was taken hostage by the group and forced to drive to a secluded area where he was fatally shot.

Allen Nicklasson and Dennis Skillicom would take the vehicle and would later shoot and kill a couple who again made the mistake of trying to help. Allen Nicklasson and Dennis Skillicom would be convicted and sentenced to death. Tim DeGraffenreid would be sentenced to life without parole. Dennis SKillicom was executed in 2009. Allen Nicklasson would be executed by lethal injection on December 12, 2013

Allen Nicklasson More News

Allen Nicklasson once recalled the “euphoria” he felt after fatally shooting a kind businessman who stopped to help when he saw Nicklasson’s car stalled on Interstate 70 near Kingdom City, Mo., in 1994.

Late Wednesday night, Nicklasson was put to death for Richard Drummond’s killing – nearly 23 hours after he was originally scheduled to die.

It was the second execution in Missouri in three weeks after a nearly three-year hiatus. Racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin was executed Nov. 20.

The executions also were the first since Missouri switched from a three-drug protocol to use of a single drug, pentobarbital.

Nicklasson, 41, was pronounced dead at 10:52 p.m. Wednesday, eight minutes after the process began. His eyes remained closed throughout and he showed little reaction to the drug, briefly breathing heavily about 2 minutes into the process. He offered no final words.

Missouri Department of Public Safety spokesman Mike O’Connell said Nicklasson prayed briefly with the prison chaplain about 20 minutes before the execution. No one from his family or the victim’s family attended.

The execution was the end of a life troubled almost from the start. Nicklasson grew up in Kansas City, Mo., in a fatherless home. His mother was a mentally ill stripper who brought home an assortment of men, many of whom abused her son. Nicklasson died bearing the scar from where one of the men burned him.

Nicklasson declined interviews in the days leading up to his execution. But in a 2009 interview with The Associated Press, he recalled the trauma of his childhood – eating Alpo dog food for dinner, watching his mother shoot up heroin. She once made him fight a Doberman for money, he recalled. Then, there was the constant torrent of abuse from his mother’s male friends.

Nicklasson suffered from bipolar disorder and lived on and off in boys’ homes for his petty crimes and institutions for his mental illness.

By his 20s, Nicklasson was homeless and a drug addict. While in rehab in 1994, he crossed paths with Dennis Skillicorn, who had been recently released from prison following a second-degree murder conviction for killing a man during a robbery.

The two and a third man, Tim DeGraffenreid, decided in August 1994 to make the trip from Kansas City across I-70 to St. Louis to buy drugs. On the way back, their rundown 1983 Chevrolet Caprice started sputtering. It broke down near Kingdom City, about 100 miles west of St. Louis, and they took it to the shop.

They used the down time to burglarize a home, stealing money and guns. Though warned the car was unfixable, the men got back on the road.

The car soon broke down again. Drummond, a 47-year-old Excelsior Springs, Mo., man who was a technical support supervisor for AT&T, saw the three men and their stranded car and stopped to help.

The men loaded their stolen goods in the trunk of Drummond’s Dodge Intrepid. Then Nicklasson put a gun to his head and told him to drive west.

Along the way, there was some debate between Nicklasson and Skillicorn about what to do with Drummond. Ultimately, they ordered him off the highway and to a secluded area in Lafayette County in western Missouri.

In the 2009 interview, Nicklasson recalled how he left the other two behind and walked Drummond to a wooded area. He said he had intended to tie him up to buy time for the trio to get away.

He changed his mind, ordering Drummond to kneel and cross his legs. Then he shot him twice in the head.

“I’m laughing, pacing,” Nicklasson said, recalling the moment. “I started losing it. I wouldn’t want this out, but I felt a euphoria. I finally got back for all the beatings I took” as a child.

Nicklasson and Skillicorn stole Drummond’s car and drove to Arizona. When the vehicle broke down in the desert, they approached the home of Joseph and Charlene Babcock. Nicklasson killed Joseph Babcock after the man drove them back to their vehicle. Charlene Babcock was killed at the couple’s home.

Both Nicklasson and Skillicorn were sentenced to life in prison for the Arizona killings and also sentenced to death in Missouri for Drummond’s death. Skillicorn was executed in 2009 even though Nicklasson took sole responsibility for killing Drummond.

DeGraffenreid pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and did not receive a death sentence.

Nicklasson’s execution was originally scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. But an appeals court panel granted a stay of execution Monday, citing concerns about his counsel at trial and sentencing in 1996.

When the full appeals court refused to take up the case Tuesday, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It did not return its 5-4 decision to vacate the stay until 10:07 p.m. Wednesday, with Justices Ruth Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissenting. Gov. Jay Nixon refused to grant clemency.

Missouri previously used a three-drug method for executions but changed protocols after drugmakers stopped selling the lethal drugs to prisons and corrections departments. The pentobarbital used in Missouri executions comes from an undisclosed compounding pharmacy – the Missouri Department of Corrections declines to say who makes the drug, or where.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/missouri-state-executes-man-in-1994-good-samaritan-killing/

Joseph Franklin Missouri Execution

Joseph Franklin was executed by the State of Missouri for a murder that took place in 1977. According to court documents Joseph Franklin was a life long criminal who was responsible for a series of murders and attempted murders across the United States for two decades. Among the crimes that he was convicted of was six murders and a number of attempted murders. Joseph Franklin was responsible for the shooting that left Penthouse founder Larry Flynt paralyzed. The murder that Joseph Franklin was sentenced to death for in Missouri was that of Gerald Gordon who Franklin shot from a distance when he was leaving the Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue, two other individuals were injured in the attack. Joseph Franklin hoped that his violent actions would start a race war. Joseph Franklin would ultimately be sentenced to six life terms plus two death sentences. Joseph was executed by lethal injection on November 20 2013.

Joseph Franklin More News

Joseph Paul Franklin is unblinking and empty as he talks about his victims.

Do you know how many people you murdered? “I’d rather not mention it,” he says flatly.

By my count, it’s 22 people. “That’s approximately it.”

And those two young boys, just 13, 14 years old.

“Yeah, I regret the fact that I shot them now,” he replies.

Joseph Franklin has been away from the civilized world for more than 30 years, serving several life sentences behind bars.

We’re meeting at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri, where he is on death row.

States scramble for lethal injection drugs

A glass partition separates us, and we’re speaking via a closed line telephone. The prison guard has put a wireless microphone on Joseph Franklin, who is shackled at the ankles, his wrists cuffed to the chain around his waist. Franklin’s hair is wild and alive, unlike his expressionless answers when he speaks about his murder victims.

This is one of the last interviews this serial killer will give.

“I felt like I was at war. The survival of the white race was at stake,” he says.Joseph Franklin compares himself to a U.S. soldier in Vietnam, trained to be a sniper in the war. The enemy, he explains, were Jews, blacks and especially interracial couples. “I consider it my mission, my three-year mission. Same length of time Jesus was on his mission, from the time he was 30 to 33.”

What was your mission? “To get a race war started.”

Joseph Franklin spent 1977 to 1980 trying to accomplish that goal, committing more than a dozen bank robberies in addition to the murders. He stalked his victims, usually finding a sniper’s nest yards away, looking down the scope of a high-powered rifle to kill his targets at will.

He explains his hate was bred from his origins and upbringing.

Franklin’s birth name was James Clayton Vaughn and he was born in Mobile, Alabama. He grew up in poverty and lived a childhood of abuse, he says.

“My momma didn’t care about us,” he explains, saying it affected him emotionally and stunted his mental development. He says he was locked up and not allowed to play with other children. He claims he was fed such a poor diet that it affected his development. “I’ve always been least 10 years or more behind other people in their maturity,” he says.

He found a family and comfort in the white supremacy groups of the American South in the 1960s. Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” moved him from hate to action. “I had this real strange feeling in my mind,” he says. “I’ve never felt that way about any other book that I read. It was something weird about that book.”

At 26, he changed his name to Joseph Paul Franklin. Joseph Paul in honor of Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, and Franklin after Benjamin Franklin.

He tattooed the grim reaper into his right forearm as a “symbol of my mission,” he explains. He shows it to me, the ink now faded green blue, the image blurry and difficult to see. “It used to be blood there, red dots falling from it,” he points out. Franklin explains he asked the tattoo artist to draw the words “Helter Skelter” on his other arm in red, with blood dripping down. Helter Skelter references ’60s serial killer Charles Manson and his desire to start a race war from California. The tattoo artist refused, Franklin said, worried about law enforcement reprisal.

Joseph Franklin says he was obsessed with killing by example. “I figured once I started doing it and showed them how, other white supremacists would do the same thing.”

Do you think you’re a hero to those hate groups?

“Well that’s what they tell me,” he says, finally laughing. “I’d rather people like me than not like me, like most people. I’d rather be loved than hated.”

Even if they are hate groups? “Yeah, and they’re not the only ones who love me, though. There a lot of Jews who love me, too.”

It’s a preposterous notion, but I can’t resist delving further.

Why do the Jews love you? “When you commit a crime against a certain group of people, a bonding takes place. It seems like you belong to them,” he says.

Joseph Franklin is talking about the crime that put him on Missouri’s death row, the murder of Gerald Gordon. On October 8, 1977, Franklin was outside the Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue in St. Louis. Some 200 guests were leaving a bar mitzvah. Franklin had hammered 10-inch nails into a telephone pole to use as a makeshift gun rest for his hunting rifle. As the guests were leaving the synagogue, Franklin fired, killing Gordon in front of his wife and three children.

There would be other victims across the country.

Joseph Franklin was convicted of killing Alphonse Manning and Toni Schwean in Madison, Wisconsin, merely because they were an interracial couple.

Franklin confessed to police that college student Rebecca Bergstrom enraged him because she said on spring break, she once dated a Jamaican man. He shot her dead.

In Cincinnati, Joseph Franklin had been lying in wait for an interracial couple but 13-year-old Dante Evans and his cousin 14-year-old Darrell Lane came walking down the road. Franklin shot them both from his sniper’s nest, striking them twice to make sure the boys were dead.

Joseph Deters, who prosecuted the Cincinnati case said of Franklin, “He’s just a creep. There’s no other way to describe him. And what he did to those two kids because of the color of their skin is incomprehensible.”

Franklin also wanted to strike high-profile targets, stalking civil rights leader Vernon Jordan Jr. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1980, Franklin sat outside Jordan’s hotel and waited. As Jordan returned from an event, Franklin shot him. Jordan was seriously injured but was not killed.

But Franklin hoped one of his biggest trophy killings would be Larry Flynt, publisher and founder of Hustler magazine. Flynt’s crime according to Franklin?

“I saw that interracial couple he had, photographed there, having sex,” he says. Franklin is referring to the December 1975 issue of Hustler that featured several photos of a black man with a white woman. “It just made me sick. I think whites marry with whites, blacks with blacks, Indians with Indians. Orientals with orientals. I threw the magazine down and thought, I’m gonna kill that guy.”

On March 6, 1978, Franklin was almost successful. Flynt was in Lawrenceville, Georgia, facing charges of obscenity. As he returned to the courthouse, two shots struck Flynt. Flynt would barely survive, and he was paralyzed from the waist down.

In a strange turn, Larry Flynt has filed a last-minute legal motion with the American Civil Liberties Union to halt Franklin’s impending execution.

Do not confuse this with mercy, Flynt explained to me days before I would meet with Joseph Franklin. “The government has no business at all being in the business of killing people,” he said. Flynt is strongly anti-death penalty, pointing out the inmates on death row are “minorities and underprivileged people, not wealthy white kids.”

Flynt believes it’s “much more punishment to put somebody in prison for the rest of their lives than it is to snip their life out in a few seconds with a lethal injection.”

Flynt said he never thinks of Franklin or cares about him, it is merely on principle the publisher is fighting to spare his life.

When I bring up Flynt to Joseph Franklin, he breaks into a smile. “My old pal Larry!” he exclaims. “Tell him I appreciate that. Thanks.” He disagrees with Flynt, though, that the death penalty is less punishment than life in prison.

“It’s just not a system that operates according to the Bible. The scriptures tell us when someone repents, God forgives them. Everything is forgotten, once forgiven. But the state doesn’t think that way,” he says.

Franklin says he’s no longer dangerous nor a racist.

Do you feel any hate looking at me? I’m not white. “I have no feeling whatsoever, no hatred to you. Especially not a female. You know what I mean?”

But you shot plenty of women. “That’s true,” he nods, “you got a point. But I felt they were enemies of the white race.”

He’s different now, he says, after poring through reams of books in prison. He’s “cured his mental illness through education,” he claims.

Do you think something lies out there for you on the other side? “Yeah, but it’s not a burning hell because I’m serving the Lord, though. It’ll be the kingdom of heaven for me because I’ve repented.”

I think we’re just about out of time. “Well let’s not say that. Let’s just say we’re gonna part temporarily.”

Time is important to you now, isn’t it? “Yeah it has been for a long time now. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.”

https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/18/justice/death-row-interview-joseph-paul-franklin/index.html

Ernest Johnson Missouri Execution

Ernest Johnson was executed by the State of Missouri for the murders of three people during a robbery. According to court documents Ernest Johnson would rob a convenience store in which he would shoot and kill three people. Ernest Johnson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Ernest Johnson who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome would appeal against his death sentence due to an intellectual disability. Ernest would be executed by lethal injection on October 5, 2021

Ernest Johnson More News

A Missouri man has been executed for murder despite pleas for clemency by advocates who said he had an intellectual disability.

Ernest Johnson received a lethal injection on Tuesday after the US Supreme Court refused to consider a stay of execution earlier in the day.

The 61-year-old’s pleas for leniency had received support from Pope Francis and two members of Congress.

Johnson killed three convenience store workers in a 1994 robbery.

Attorneys for Johnson argued he was ineligible for the death penalty because multiple IQ tests had shown he had the mental capacity of a child and read at a primary school level.

Johnson, a black man, had been born with foetal alcohol syndrome after his mother drank heavily during her pregnancy.

He had also been missing a fifth of his brain tissue since 2008 after undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumour.

Attorneys pointed to a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that asserts that using the death penalty against Americans with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments”.

However, the US state’s top court denied Johnson a stay of execution last year and refused to take up his case again. The state’s Republican governor had also refused to block the sentence from being carried out.

Elected officials, racial justice activists and faith leaders joined the efforts to spare Johnson’s life.

A representative of Pope Francis – who in 2018 changed the teachings of the Catholic faith to officially oppose the death penalty in all circumstances – wrote last week to Missouri’s governor that the pope “wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr Johnson’s humanity and the sacredness of all human life”.

But on Monday, Governor Mike Parson announced the state would “deliver justice and carry out the lawful sentence Mr Johnson received in accordance with the Missouri Supreme Court’s order”.

Writing in support of the execution, Attorney General Eric Schmitt said that the facts of Johnson’s actions “plainly reflect the offender’s ability to plan, strategise, calculate, and scheme effectively”.

Johnson had asked to be executed by firing squad but his request was denied by the Missouri Supreme Court, and he was instead executed by lethal injection.

In a handwritten statement before his death, Johnson apologised for his crimes and thanked his family, friends and lawyer for their support.

He is the first inmate to be put to death in the state since May 2020 and the seventh to be executed in the US this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58811241

Tag: missouri execution