Despite dozens of prison staffers’ campaign to save him, Missouri on Tuesday executed Brian Dorsey for killing his cousin and her husband in 2006.
Dorsey, 51, was the first prisoner sentenced to death to be executed in Missouri this year. He was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. local time at the state prison in Bonne Terre after a single-dose injection of the sedative pentobarbital, the Associated Press reported.
In a letter to Gov. Mike Parson asking him to spare Dorsey’s life, prison staffers had called Dorsey a “model inmate” who even cut the warden’s hair after being allowed to work as a barber. On Monday, Parson said the execution would go forward.
Dorsey, who had requested clemency, thanked those who tried to save his life.
“To my family, friends, and all of those that tried to prevent this, I love you!” he said in a handwritten note that he left as his last words. “I am grateful for you. I have peace in my heart in large part because of you and I thank you. To all those on ALL sides of this sentence, I carry no ill will or anger, only acceptance and understanding.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied last-minute attempts to halt the execution, including an application for a stay of execution and a request that it review a lower court’s affirmation of the sentence.
Dorsey was convicted of murdering cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband, Ben Bonnie, after he asked for their help because, he said, two drug dealers were at his door demanding he pay his debts.
The pair took him home on Dec. 23, 2006, with plans for Dorsey to stay over, when he grabbed his cousin’s shotgun and opened fire, killing the pair.
Their 4-year-old daughter was home and physically unharmed. Dorsey pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, forgoing trial, but a jury was seated for sentencing in 2008.
It found seven aggravating factors that contributed to its recommendation of death, later ordered by the Missouri Supreme Court. Among the factors was Dorsey’s assault on…
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