Dennis Skillicorn Executed

This was a multiple murderer and he was executed way too mercifully.

BONNE TERRE, Mo. – Missouri early Wednesday executed a man who killed a good Samaritan who had stopped on the road to help him, ending a nearly four-year period without an execution in the state. Texas, meanwhile, executed its 15th prisoner this year.

Dennis Skillicorn, 49, received an injection at 12:23 a.m. at the prison in Bonne Terre and died 11 minutes later. It was the first execution in Missouri since Marlin Gray was put to death in October 2005.

Executions in Missouri had been on hold shortly after Gray's death as the courts decided whether lethal injection in general, and the state's three-drug method in particular, violated constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Skillicorn mouthed words to his wife and two spiritual advisers as the first drug was administered to him. Soon, he appeared unconscious.

As part of a new protocol, curtains in witness viewing areas were then closed for about two minutes while medical staff checked to make sure that Skillicorn was unconscious and that the catheters were working properly. Once confirmed, the next two drugs were administered, and he was pronounced dead a short time later.

In 1994, a car carrying Skillicorn, Allen Nicklasson and Tim DeGraffenreid stalled along Interstate 70 north of Fulton in Callaway County.

Drummond, from the northwestern Missouri town of Excelsior Springs, stopped to help, but was forced at gunpoint to drive the men toward Kansas City. On the way, the men stopped in a rural area, and Nicklasson shot Drummond in the back of the head.   SOURCE