ST. LOUIS -
Missouri has carried out its first execution in nearly four years, putting Dennis Skillicorn to death for the killing of a good Samaritan businessman. Skillicorn received an injection shortly before 12:30 a.m. Wednesday at the prison in Bonne Terre and died about 10 minutes later. He was 49.
Skillicorn was one of three men convicted in the 1994 kidnap and murder of Richard Drummond. The Excelsior Springs man had stopped to help the three after their car broke down on Interstate 70 north of Fulton. Skillicorn was on parole at the time for an earlier murder.
Supporters sought to have his death sentence commuted to life in prison, saying he was a model prisoner.
Anti-Death Penalty Protestors Gather Hours Before Execution
By Andy Banker
It was a sight St. Louis had not seen in close to 4 years; protesters gathered in opposition to an execution just hours away. 75 or so gathered Tuesday night at St. Francis Xavier College Church on the campus of St. Louis University for a prayer service and vigil about 4 hours prior to the scheduled execution of Dennis Skillicorn, 49.
Skillicorn is on death row for his role in the 1994 murder of Richard Drummond, who stopped to help Skillicorn and two other men after their car stalled in Lafayette County, MO. Skillicorn has maintained his innocence.
Before holding a candlelight vigil, the demonstrators gathered in a chapel to sing and pray. As one put it, they did so to lift up Skillicorn in prayer. Religious leaders who worked with him in the prison system maintained Skillicorn had turned his life around and became a model prisoner; counseling other inmates in need.
The demonstrators then gathered on the steps outside the church, holding signs saying the death penalty was unjust and was not a deterrent; wearing t-shirts saying 'moratorium now'.
They also had inmate, Reggie Clemons, 37, on their minds. Clemons is scheduled to become the second person executed for the infamous 1991 Chain of Rocks Bridge killings in North St. Louis.
He's one of four men convicted in connection with the beatings, rapes, and murders of sisters Robin Kerry, 19, and Julie Kerry,20, of North County; throwing the girls from the bridge and into the Mississippi River after the attack.
Clemons has maintained his innocence, saying police beat him into confessing to a role in the crime; even then, he contends he never confessed to murder.
"I'm real nervous about being executed simply because I know they will execute innocent people," he said in a 2008 interview with Fox 2. "There's nothing in the record that I killed anybody. There's nothing in the record that I knew anything about a murder. For that reason, the federal court said I should either get a new trial or at the very least be taken off of death row."
"There's always hope," said Eulyses Jones, a witness at one of Missouri's last executions; that of Donald Jones, in 2005. The two men were not related. Donald Jones was convicted of murdering his grandmother in St. Louis for refusing to give him money to buy drugs.
He and the other demonstrators said it was time for Governor Jay Nixon to show political courage and intercede, at least in cases where inmates like Skillicorn wer living productive lives in prison and especially in cases where there were unresolved claims of innocence, like that of Clemons.
"He's facing the ultimately penalty," said demonstrator, Daryl Burton. Burton was recently exonerated in murder case after serving more than a decade in prison. "If they make a mistake .. and it comes out later, determined that they're innocent, then how do you reverse that ? How do you take that back?"
"It's stupid," Eulyses Jones said. "When I can keep Reggie Clemons in jail for the rest of his natural life, even if he didn't do it, I won't be guilty of stop of stopping a life or taking a life that later on - he was proven to be innocent."
Burton urged Clemons to pray and to keep up hope.
"There's one source all of us, when we come to crisis have to turn to, that source is God, in the name of Jesus. I say that as someone who never believed in God, in Jesus, in miracles."
Skillicorn was to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
Skillicorn was one of three men convicted in the 1994 kidnap and murder of Richard Drummond. The Excelsior Springs man had stopped to help the three after their car broke down on Interstate 70 north of Fulton. Skillicorn was on parole at the time for an earlier murder.
Supporters sought to have his death sentence commuted to life in prison, saying he was a model prisoner.
Anti-Death Penalty Protestors Gather Hours Before Execution
By Andy Banker
It was a sight St. Louis had not seen in close to 4 years; protesters gathered in opposition to an execution just hours away. 75 or so gathered Tuesday night at St. Francis Xavier College Church on the campus of St. Louis University for a prayer service and vigil about 4 hours prior to the scheduled execution of Dennis Skillicorn, 49.
Skillicorn is on death row for his role in the 1994 murder of Richard Drummond, who stopped to help Skillicorn and two other men after their car stalled in Lafayette County, MO. Skillicorn has maintained his innocence.
Before holding a candlelight vigil, the demonstrators gathered in a chapel to sing and pray. As one put it, they did so to lift up Skillicorn in prayer. Religious leaders who worked with him in the prison system maintained Skillicorn had turned his life around and became a model prisoner; counseling other inmates in need.
The demonstrators then gathered on the steps outside the church, holding signs saying the death penalty was unjust and was not a deterrent; wearing t-shirts saying 'moratorium now'.
They also had inmate, Reggie Clemons, 37, on their minds. Clemons is scheduled to become the second person executed for the infamous 1991 Chain of Rocks Bridge killings in North St. Louis.
He's one of four men convicted in connection with the beatings, rapes, and murders of sisters Robin Kerry, 19, and Julie Kerry,20, of North County; throwing the girls from the bridge and into the Mississippi River after the attack.
Clemons has maintained his innocence, saying police beat him into confessing to a role in the crime; even then, he contends he never confessed to murder.
"I'm real nervous about being executed simply because I know they will execute innocent people," he said in a 2008 interview with Fox 2. "There's nothing in the record that I killed anybody. There's nothing in the record that I knew anything about a murder. For that reason, the federal court said I should either get a new trial or at the very least be taken off of death row."
"There's always hope," said Eulyses Jones, a witness at one of Missouri's last executions; that of Donald Jones, in 2005. The two men were not related. Donald Jones was convicted of murdering his grandmother in St. Louis for refusing to give him money to buy drugs.
He and the other demonstrators said it was time for Governor Jay Nixon to show political courage and intercede, at least in cases where inmates like Skillicorn wer living productive lives in prison and especially in cases where there were unresolved claims of innocence, like that of Clemons.
"He's facing the ultimately penalty," said demonstrator, Daryl Burton. Burton was recently exonerated in murder case after serving more than a decade in prison. "If they make a mistake .. and it comes out later, determined that they're innocent, then how do you reverse that ? How do you take that back?"
"It's stupid," Eulyses Jones said. "When I can keep Reggie Clemons in jail for the rest of his natural life, even if he didn't do it, I won't be guilty of stop of stopping a life or taking a life that later on - he was proven to be innocent."
Burton urged Clemons to pray and to keep up hope.
"There's one source all of us, when we come to crisis have to turn to, that source is God, in the name of Jesus. I say that as someone who never believed in God, in Jesus, in miracles."
Skillicorn was to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
