AP’s St. Louis According to a clemency petition filed on his behalf, a Missouri man who faces the death penalty for sexually abusing and killing a child was frequently abused physically and sexually as a young man and has a brain structure that is aberrant and affects his judgment.
Christopher Collings, 49, will be put to death at the state jail in Bonne Terre on Tuesday night by injection of pentobarbital. It would be the fourth execution in Missouri and the 23rd in the United States this year.
Collings was found guilty on November 3, 2007, of the murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford, a fourth-grader from the small community of Stella in southwest Missouri. Six days later, her body was discovered in a sinkhole. They had strangled her. Collings admitted to the offenses.
History is against Collings, but Republican Governor Mike Parson was still considering the clemency appeal on Monday: Parson, a former county sheriff, has never granted clemency despite having presided over 12 executions.
Collings’ lawyer, Jeremy Weis, stated that although multiple courts have denied some of his prior challenges, another appeal is currently underway before the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to the clemency petition, Collings’ brain anomaly results in functional deficiencies in awareness, conduct, judgment and reasoning, proper social restraint, and emotional regulation. It further mentions that as a child, he experienced regular and frequently violent maltreatment.
According to the petition, the end effect was a damaged person who lacked direction on how to develop into a competent adult.
The petition also questions whether Collings’ execution was justifiable given that Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, who was also charged with the crime, confessed but was permitted to enter a plea of lesser offenses. Prior to his release in 2015, Spears was incarcerated for over seven years.
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 claimed that after he abducted the sleeping girl from a house and brought her to his trailer, he attacked her. He claimed that after realizing the youngster recognized him, he used a rope to strangle her.
Collings admitted to bringing the girl’s body to a sinkhole, according to investigators. Prosecutors said he set fire to his blood-stained mattress, the clothes he was wearing, and the rope used in the attack.
According to court records and the clemency petition, Spears also admitted his involvement in the crimes. Spears told police that Collings gave him a cord and that he killed Rowan, according to a transcript of his testimony to police that was used in the petition.
I use it to choke her. I know she’s gone. According to the transcript, Spears stated, “She’s really gone.” According to court filings, Spears guided investigators to the sinkhole where her body was discovered.
There was no phone number for Spears.
The credibility of the primary law enforcement witness at Collings’ trial—a police chief from a nearby town who had four AWOL charges while in the Army—is contested in both the clemency petition and the Supreme Court appeal. Weis argues that Collings’ right to due process was violated by the failure to reveal information regarding that criminal past during the trial.
In an interview, Weis stated that the core of the case against Mr. Collings was his credibility.
This year, Missouri has seen the execution of three men: Marcellus Williamson on September 24, David Hosieron on June 11, and Brian Dorsey on April 9. The only states that have carried out more executions than Missouri in 2024 are Texas (five) and Alabama (six).
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