BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for sexually assaulting and killing a 9-year-old girl, then dumping her body in a sinkhole outside a small, rural town.
Christopher Collings, 49, was a friend of the family of the victim, fourth-grader Rowan Ford — so much so that he lived with the family for several months before the girl’s death in November 2007. He sometimes helped Rowan with her homework. She knew him as “Uncle Chris.”
Collings was put to death with an injection of a single dose of pentobarbital and pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. CST at the state prison in Bonne Terre. 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.
Collings spoke with a spiritual adviser who was at his side as the process began. Shortly thereafter, he appeared to breathe heavily and swallow hard. After a few seconds, all movement stopped. He was officially declared dead a few minutes later.
Collings’ fate was sealed Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside an appeal and Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency.
“Right or wrong I accept this situation for what it is,” Collings said in a written final statement. “To anyone that I have hurt in this life I am sorry. I hope that you are able to get closure and move on.” He added, “I hope to see you in heaven one day.”
Rowan was described by teachers at Collings’ trial as a hard-working and happy student, a lover of Barbie who had her room painted pink.
Collings told authorities that he drank heavily and smoked marijuana with Rowan’s stepfather, David 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 and took her to the camper where he lived, where he assaulted her.
Collings 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.
Rowan’s mother, Colleen Munson, returned home from work at 9 a.m. on Nov. 3, 2007, and was alarmed when she couldn’t find Rowan, walking the neighborhood looking for her. Court records said Spears insisted Rowan was at a friend’s house. But when Rowan failed to return home by the afternoon, the mother called police, prompting a massive search.
Collings, Spears and the third man became the focus of police attention because they were the last people seen at Rowan’s home. Collings confessed to the crime and told police that after killing Rowan, he took the body to a sinkhole. He burned the rope used in the attack, along with the clothes he was wearing and his blood-stained mattress, prosecutors said.
Court documents and the clemency petition said Spears also implicated himself in the crimes. A transcript of Spears’ statement to police, cited in the clemency petition, said Spears told police that Collings handed him a cord and Spears killed Rowan.
“I choke her with it. I realize she’s gone. She’s ... she’s really gone,” Spears said, according to the transcript. Meanwhile, court documents said it was Spears who led authorities to the sinkhole where the body was found.
But Spears was allowed to plead to lesser charges. It wasn’t clear why. Prosecutors at the original trial didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
Spears served more than seven years in prison before being released in 2015. No phone listing for him could be found.
The clemency petition said Collings suffered from a brain abnormality that created “functional deficits in awareness, judgment and deliberation, comportment, appropriate social inhibition, and emotional regulation.” It also noted that he was frequently abused and sexually abused as a child.
“The result was a damaged human being with no guidance on how to grow into a functioning adult,” the petition stated.
The clemency petition and the Supreme Court appeal both challenged the reliability of the key law enforcement witness at Collings’ trial, a police chief from a neighboring town who had four AWOL convictions while serving in the Army. Failure to disclose details about that criminal history at trial violated Collings’ right to due process, Collings’ attorney, Jeremy Weis, contended.
“His credibility was really at the heart of the entire case against Mr. Collings,” Weis said in an interview.
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This last name of the victim's mother has been corrected throughout to Munson, not Spears.
Jim Salter, The Associated Press