A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for the 2007 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl who called him “Uncle Chris,” but the attacker told a guard, “One day I’ll be in heaven. “I hope to meet you,” he said.
Christopher Collings, 49, was pronounced dead nine minutes after receiving a single injection of pentobarbital inside the state prison in Bonne Terre, becoming the 23rd person to be executed in the United States this year.
A father of two has been found guilty of murdering young Rowan Ford, who was sexually assaulted, strangled and abandoned in a sinkhole in a small Missouri town.
“Right or wrong, I accept this situation as it is,” Collings said in a final written statement.
“I’m sorry to anyone I’ve hurt in this life. I hope we can get closure and move on.”
“I hope to see you in heaven someday,” he added.
His last meal was a bacon cheeseburger, breaded mushrooms, tater tots and a chef’s salad, according to the Kansas City Star.
Collings was friends with Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, and lived in the same house with them and Rowan’s mother, Colleen Munson, for several months in 2007.
One night, after drinking heavily and smoking marijuana with Spears and another man, Collings picked the sleeping child out of bed and took her to his camper, according to court records.
The man confessed that he raped her and then strangled her with a wire when he saw Collings taking her home and was “freaked out”.
Prosecutors said he placed her body in a sinkhole and burned the wire, clothes she was wearing and the blood-stained mattress.
On the morning of November 3, Manson returned home from work and was told by Spears that Rowan was at a friend’s house. When she did not return home, police launched an extensive search for her.
According to court documents cited in Collings’ clemency petition, Spears also implicated himself in the crime, saying Collings gave him a code and that he killed Rowan.
Spears ultimately appealed the lesser charge and served more than seven years in prison.
A final appeal on behalf of Mr. Collings to Missouri Governor Mike Parson and the U.S. Supreme Court failed.
“Mr. Collings has all the protections afforded to him by the Missouri Constitution and the United States Constitution, and Mr. Collings’ conviction and sentence for his horrific and callous crimes remain,” Parson said in a statement.
Teachers who testified at the trial said Rowan was remembered as a happy student who loved Barbie dolls and painted her room pink.
“I’m so proud of what she did,” her sister Ariane Max told USA Today.
“When my sister died, a part of me died too. I lost my sunshine… She was very shy, but when she opened up, it was like the whole room lit up. I felt that Rowan was a very special person.
with post wire
