A man who abducted and beat a 6-year-old girl to death in Missouri decades ago has been executed
A man who abducted a 6-year-old Missouri girl and beat her to death at an abandoned factory decades ago was put to death Tuesday evening, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to block the lethal injection over arguments he was mentally incompetent., 45, received a a lethal dose of pentobarbital at a state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. CDT, authorities said. He was convicted of the July 2002 killing of Casey Williamson in the small St.
“The Court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed,” Sotomayor and the other dissenting justices wrote in a statement when the stay was rejected by the wider court."There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world."
In the morning, Johnson lured the girl — still in her nightgown — to the abandoned factory, even carrying her on his shoulders on the walk to the dilapidated site, according to court documents. When he tried to sexually assault her, Casey screamed and tried to break free, they said. He then killed her with a brick and a large rock, then washed off in the nearby Meramec River. Johnson confessed that same day to the crimes, according to authorities.
In June, the Missouri Supreme Court denied an appeal seeking to block the execution on arguments that Johnson had schizophrenia that prevented him from understanding the link between his crime and the punishment. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office successfully challenged the credibility of the psychiatric evaluation and said medical records indicate that Johnson was able to manage his mental illness through medication.
The clemency petition by Johnson's attorneys said Casey's father, Ernie Williamson, opposed the death penalty.
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