Killer with brain ‘abnormality’ to be executed for dumping girl’s body in sinkhole
A death row inmate with a brain abnormality is set to receive a lethal injection for killing a nine-year-old girl and discarding her body in a sinkhole.
Christopher Collings, 49, was denied clemency from Missouri’s governor on Monday, confirming his scheduled execution on at 6pm CT on Tuesday at the Bonne Terre state prison.
He is set to receive an injection of pentobarbital for murdering fourth grader Rowan Ford on November 3, 2007.
Collings had lived with Rowan’s family for a few months and she even called him Uncle Chris. Rowan was found strangled to death in a sinkhole near the small town of Stella six days after she was killed. The killer confessed to murdering Rowan.
A clemency petition stated that Collings had a brain abnormality that triggered ‘functional deficits in awareness, judgment and deliberation, comportment, appropriate social inhibition, and emotional regulation’.
Collings also had been abused as a kid and ‘the result was a damaged human being with no guidance on how to grow into a functioning adult’, according to the petition.
The petition also noted that Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, was also charged in the case but allowed to plead lesser crimes, and was released after serving more than seven years behind bars.
Collings admitted to smoking weed and drinking excessively with Spears and another man hours before picking up Rowan from her bed while she was sleeping and assaulting her in the camper where he resided. When Rowan recognized him, Collings said he strangled her using a rope.
Spears told cops that Collings gave him a cord and that he killed Rowan.
‘I choke her with it. I realize she’s gone. She’s… she’s really gone,’ said Spears, according to the petition.
Collings said he burned the rope, his bloodied mattress and his clothes and left Rowan’s body in a sinkhole, said prosecutors.
Spears ultimately took authorities to the sinkhole, per court records. It was not clear why he was able to plead to lesser charges.
Hours before Republican Governor Mike Parson denied clemency for Collings, the US Supreme Court denied an appeal from him without providing a reason.
‘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,’ stated Parson.
Collings will be the fourth inmate to be executed in the Show Me State and the 23rd in the US this year.
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