Missouri executes man for 15-year-old girl's 1989 killing

[webfact]

Missouri executes man for 15-year-old girl's 1989 killing
JIM SALTER, Associated Press

BONNE TERRE, Missouri (AP) — A man who spent nearly 25 years on Missouri's death row was executed Tuesday for the kidnapping, rape and stabbing death of a 15-year-old girl.

Roderick Nunley, 50, became the sixth death row inmate to be put to death in Missouri this year. During the execution, his breathing became labored for a few seconds. He briefly opened his mouth before becoming still.

He was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. CDT.

"Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber," Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement. "Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome."

Of 20 executions nationally in 2015, all but four have been in Missouri and Texas. Nunley's execution was delayed by last-minute appeals from attorneys for death penalty opponents in Missouri questioning the competence of Nunley's lawyer.

Nunley made no final statement and no one witnessed his punishment on his behalf, although he visited earlier in the day with his daughter and a spiritual adviser.

Robert Harrison, the father of the girl killed, watched the execution along with the victim's uncle and two family friends.

The disappearance and death of Ann Harrison haunted the Kansas City area in March 1989. She was waiting for a school bus on her driveway when Nunley and Michael Taylor drove by in a stolen car and made the spur-of-the-moment decision to abduct her.

Her body was found in the trunk of the abandoned car three days later.

Both men were sentenced to death in 1991. Taylor was executed last year.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Tuesday denied a clemency request for Nunley, filed by death penalty opponents, asserting that racial bias played a role in the case because a prosecutor refused a plea deal that would have given Nunley life in prison without parole.

Nunley was black, as was Taylor, while the victim was white.

The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, denied several appeals from Nunley's attorney, including one claiming that the death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Retired Kansas City detective Pete Edlund said the only thing cruel and unusual was how long Nunley and Taylor remained on death row.

"They just take forever to do the deed," Edlund told The Associated Press. "The delay in executing these two is just nuts because it didn't have anything to do with their guilt. It was legal mumbo jumbo nonsense."

According to prosecutors, Nunley and Taylor binged on cocaine and stole a car in the pre-dawn hours of March 22, 1989. At one point, a police officer from neighboring Lee's Summit chased the car but was called off by a supervisor when the stolen car crossed into Kansas City.

Later that morning, the men were driving around Kansas City when they saw Ann, her school books and flute on the ground beside her.

The girl's mother had stepped inside to get a younger daughter ready for school. When she heard the bus, she looked outside. The books and flute were still there, but Ann was gone.

Taylor and Nunley had grabbed the girl and taken her to Nunley's mother's home. She was raped and sodomized, then stabbed repeatedly in the stomach and neck.

Taylor and Nunley put the girl's body in the trunk of the stolen car, then abandoned it in a residential area.

Edlund said the case was cracked months later when a man in jail for robbery — and seeking a $10,000 reward in the case — turned in Taylor and Nunley. Both men confessed, and some of Ann's hair was found in carpeting at the home where the crime occurred.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-09-02

[SheungWan]

He won't be missed.

[Scott]

Off-topic, inflammatory post and reply removed.

[Shermanator]

This is "justice served" to me. Have him waiting and hoping in a cell for 25 years and then eventually end his miserable life. I hope he will get what he deserved once he stands in front of the creator. Hope the girl's father finds closure by seeing the man who raped and killed his little girl die away, hope the culprit whined like a baby, tears rolling, begging for mercy. How much I hate him just by reading what he did to that little girl...

[Kannikapor88]

I hope he rot in Hell that ba$tard - why did the taxpayers had to pay for that abnormity for 25 years ... They should have hanged him immidiately after the sentence ...

All those defense attorneys making bloodmoney and the so called Human Rights Org. - where was the poor girls human rights ... ? I wish there was Death Penalty in Europe ...

[Jools]

Lethal injection is the most humane method of capital punishment yet devised. Most of those who receive this sentence have a much easier death than their victims did. Very difficult to feel any sympathy for rapists and murderers.

[jesimps]

Disgusting that this monster was allowed to live so long.

[connda]

Bon voyage child murdering rapist.

[ableguy]

This is "justice served" to me. Have him waiting and hoping in a cell for 25 years and then eventually end his miserable life. I hope he will get what he deserved once he stands in front of the creator. Hope the girl's father finds closure by seeing the man who raped and killed his little girl die away, hope the culprit whined like a baby, tears rolling, begging for mercy. How much I hate him just by reading what he did to that little girl...

How much has it cost the tax payer keeping him alive .? Best do it the Chinese and Russian way, a bullet in the back of the head whilst walking back to the cells after being found guilty by admission.

[hawker9000]

I spent many a good day and night in MO. It has since turned into a Police state. Too many people on death row are proven to be innocent. Better 10,000 guilty go free than one person wrongfully detained let alone murdered by the state. Ex-pats in Thailand, you haters, go to it. Near everyone of you part of the problem, nothing to offer for solution.

And how many guilty is it better to let go free than the number of their innocent victims when they kill again?

MO, a "Police state".

Executing murders actually IS a solution; a pretty darned effective one, too ... to their killing anyone else anyway. Not sure a 25-yr wait for justice should be part of that solution though.

[hugh2121]

If somebody is executed for murder and subsequently proved innocent??????????????????????????????????

Surely the execution would have been murder as no crime had been committed. History tells us that innocent people have been found guilty and executed. "Oops, sorry!" doesn't really compensate. This is the main reason that most (if not all) European countries do not have or do not use capital punishment. It has also been shown that capital punishment is not a deterrent to others.

Does ANYONE have the right to take the life of another? If so, by what authority?

I was disgusted by the recent executions in Indonesia and other parts of the world.

I doubt that many readers will agree with my view as this particular crime was so horrific that many people wanted him to be put down but that is my view and I cannot change how I feel about executions in general.

[mcfish]

If somebody is executed for murder and subsequently proved innocent??????????????????????????????????

Surely the execution would have been murder as no crime had been committed. History tells us that innocent people have been found guilty and executed. "Oops, sorry!" doesn't really compensate. This is the main reason that most (if not all) European countries do not have or do not use capital punishment. It has also been shown that capital punishment is not a deterrent to others.

Does ANYONE have the right to take the life of another? If so, by what authority?

I was disgusted by the recent executions in Indonesia and other parts of the world.

I doubt that many readers will agree with my view as this particular crime was so horrific that many people wanted him to be put down but that is my view and I cannot change how I feel about executions in general.

Its called collateral damage, yeah it sucks but without it we would all be speaking German or Japanese

Edited September 6, 2015 by mcfish