On Tuesday, Christopher Collings was executed for sexually assaulting and killing a 9-year-old child, then dumping her body in a sinkhole outside a small Missouri town, the Associated Press reports. The execution was the 23rd in the U.S. this year and the fourth in Missouri. Only Alabama with six and Texas with five have performed more executions in 2024. He was put to death with a single dose of pentobarbital on Tuesday evening at the state prison in Bonne Terre. Collings spoke with a spiritual adviser who was at his side as the process began. Shortly thereafter, the inmate appeared to breathe heavily and swallow hard. After a few seconds, all movement stopped. He was officially declared dead nine minutes after the injection.Collings’ fate was sealed Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside an appeal and Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency.
Rowan Ford, the 9-year-old victim, knew Collings as “Uncle Chris” after he spent several months living with her family. Rowan was a fourth-grader described by teachers at Collings’ trial as a hard-working and happy student, a lover of Barbie who had her room painted pink. Collings was a friend of Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, and lived for several months in 2007 at the home Rowan shared with her mother, Colleen Munson, and Spears. Collings sometimes helped Rowan with her homework. Collings told authorities that he drank heavily and smoked marijuana with Spears and another man in the hours before the attack on Rowan, according to court records. Collings said he picked up the still-sleeping child from her bed, took her to the camper where he lived, and assaulted her. He planned to take Rowan back home, leading her outside the camper facing away from him so that she couldn’t identify him, he said in his confession. But when moonlight lit up the darkness, Rowan was able to see Collings, he told police. He said he “freaked out,” grabbed a rope from a nearby pickup truck, and strangled her.
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