A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for the 2007 rape and homicide of a 9-year-old lady who knew him as “Uncle Chris” — with the killer telling observers he hopes to see them “in heaven one day.”
Christopher Collings, 49, was declared lifeless 9 minutes after he was injected with a single dose of pentobarbital inside a state jail in Bonne Terre — marking the twenty third execution within the US this yr.
The daddy of two was discovered responsible of the homicide of little Rowan Ford, who was sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in a sinkhole in a small Missouri city.
“Right or wrong I accept this situation for what it is,” Collings stated in a written last assertion.
“To anybody that I’ve damage on this life I’m sorry. I hope that you’ll be able to get closure and transfer on.
“I hope to see you in heaven one day,” he added.
His final meal was a bacon cheeseburger, breaded mushrooms, tater tots and a chef salad, the Kansas Metropolis Star reported.
Collings was friends with Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, and lived in the identical dwelling as the 2 and Rowan’s mom, Colleen Munson, for a number of months in 2007.
One evening after heavy ingesting and smoking marijuana with Spears and one other man, Collings scooped up the kid from his mattress as she slept and took her to his camper, per court docket data.
He raped her after which after she noticed Collings’ face as he carried her again dwelling, he confessed he “freaked out” and strangled her with a wire.
He then put her physique in a sinkhole and burned the wire he used, the garments he had on and a blood-stained mattress, in response to prosecutors.
When mom Munson obtained dwelling from work the morning of Nov. 3, she was advised by Spears Rowan was at a pal’s dwelling. When she by no means got here dwelling, police launched a large seek for her.
Spears additionally implicated himself within the crime, claiming Collings gave him a twine and that he killed Rowan, in response to court docket docs cited in a clemency petition for Collings.
Spears ended up pleading to lesser prices and served greater than seven years in jail.
Final-ditch appeals on behalf of Collings to Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and the US Supreme Court docket failed.
“Mr. Collings has received every protection afforded by the Missouri and United States Constitutions, and Mr. Collings’ conviction and sentence remain for his horrendous and callous crime,” Parson stated in a press release.
Rowan was remembered as a contented scholar who cherished Barbie and painted her room pink, in response to academics who testified at her trial.
“I am so proud of the girl that she was turning out to be,” her older sister, Ariane Macks, advised USA As we speak.
“A part of me died when my sister died. I did lose my ray of sunshine … She was very shy but when she opened up, it’s like the whole room lit up. Rowan, she was something very special.”
With Publish wires
