The Missouri Supreme Court has issued a warrant of execution for Christopher Collings for Tuesday, Dec. 3. Collings was convicted of the 2007 rape and murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford in Stella, Missouri.
The next person scheduled to be executed in Missouri was Marcellus Williams on Sept. 24. In January, St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Williams’ murder conviction in the 1998 killing of Felicia Gayle. On Aug. 21, a consent agreement was reached in which Williams entered a no-contest Alford plea. He was expected to be resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at a sentencing hearing Aug. 22.
Missouri has executed two men, Brian Dorsey and David Hosier, already this year. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The Church teaches, in light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide” (CCC 2267).
