AP’s St. Louis Tuesday night, a Missouri man who strangled and sexually assaulted a 9-year-old girl whose body was dumped into a sinkhole will be executed.
In connection with the 2007 murder of fourth-grader Rowan Ford, Christopher Collings, 49, is scheduled to receive a single injection of the sedative pentobarbital at 6 p.m. CST.
On November 3, 2007, the child was attacked and strangled with a length of rope in the small hamlet of Stella in southwest Missouri. Her body was found in the sinkhole outside the town six days later.
Collings’ fate seemed to be sealed on Monday when Republican Governor Mike Parson rejected a request for clemency and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal. Parson, a former sheriff, has never awarded clemency despite having presided over 12 executions.
Collings’ execution would be the fourth in Missouri and the 23rd in the United States this year.On April 9, Brian Dorsey, David Hosier, and Marcellus Williams were put to death. The only states with more executions in 2024 are Texas with five and Alabama with six.
Teachers at Collings trial described Rowan, a fourth-grader, as a pleasant and hard-working girl who loved Barbie dolls and had her room painted pink. Collings stayed in the house Rowan shared with Spears and Rowan’s mother, Colleen Spears, for a few months in 2007. Collings was a friend of Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears. Collings was referred to as Uncle Chris by the child.
According to court documents, Collings admitted to authorities that in the hours prior to the attack on Rowan, he smoked marijuana and drank a lot of alcohol with Spears and another man. Collings said that he grabbed the youngster, who was still asleep, from her bed, brought her to his camper, and then attacked her there.
Collings informed the police that he intended to drive Rowan home while guiding her outside the camper with her back to him so she wouldn’t be able to identify the attacker. Collings told police that Rowan was able to see him when the moonlight illuminated the blackness. He claimed that after losing his mind, he killed her by snatching a rope from a neighboring pickup truck.
On November 3, around 9 a.m., Colleen Spears came home from work and was startled to discover Rowan gone. Court records said Spears insisted Rowan was at a friend s house. But when Rowan failed to return home by the afternoon, Colleen Spears called police, prompting a massive search.
Collings, Spears and a third man became the focus of police attention because they were the last people seen at Rowan s home. Collings told police that after killing Rowan, he took the body to a sinkhole. He burned the rope used in the attack, along with the clothes he was wearing and his bloodstained mattress, prosecutors said.
Court documents and the clemency petition said Spears also implicated himself in the crimes. A transcript of Spears statement to police, cited in the clemency petition, said Spears told officers that Collings handed him a cord and Spears killed Rowan.
I choke her with it. I realize she s gone. She s she s really gone, Spears said, according to the transcript. Meanwhile, court documents said it was Spears who led authorities to the sinkhole where the body was found.
But Spears was allowed to plead to lesser charges. It wasn t clear why. Prosecutors at the original trial didn t respond to messages seeking comment.
Spears served more than seven years in prison before being released in 2015. No phone listing could be found for Spears.
The clemency petition said Collings suffered from a brain abnormality that created functional deficits in awareness, judgment and deliberation, comportment, appropriate social inhibition, and emotional regulation. It also noted that he was frequently abused and sexually abused as a child.
The result was a damaged human being with no guidance on how to grow into a functioning adult, the petition stated.
The clemency petition and the Supreme Court appeal both challenged the reliability of the key law enforcement witness at Collings trial, a police chief from a neighboring town who had four AWOL convictions while serving in the Army. Failure to disclose details about that criminal history at trial violated Collings right to due process, Collings attorney, Jeremy Weis, contended.
His credibility was really at the heart of the entire case against Mr. Collings, Weis said in an interview.
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