Ozark killer to be first person executed in US since coronavirus lockdowns

Walter Barton was sentenced to death for the murder of an elderly woman in a Missouri trailer park three decades ago.

The US's 10-week stay of executions due to the coronavirus lockdowns is expected to end on Tuesday with the lethal injection of Ozark killer Walter Barton.

Barton, 64, was sentenced to death for the assault, rape and murder of an elderly woman in a Missouri trailer park almost 30 years ago.

He will be the first person executed in the country since Nathaniel Woods was put to death in Alabama on March 5.

The nationwide lockdown measures to slow the spread of coronavirus saw the delay of executions over the past two and a half months as states implemented social distancing measures throughout prisons.

Read more

Ohio, Tennessee and Texas postponed executions after defence lawyers claimed the coronavirus lockdowns kept them from the access needed to effectively petition for appeals or clemency.

Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann told the Associated Press that everyone entering the prison will have temperatures checked and be given face masks. Witnesses will be socially distanced into three separate rooms.

There have been no confirmed cases of coronavirus reported at the prison in Bonne Terre, about 60 miles south of St Louis, where the execution will take place.

The lethal injection was scheduled to go ahead after federal a federal appeals court on Sunday overturned a stay of execution granted two days earlier.

Missouri Governor Mike Parsons said he had not heard anything to make him consider clemency, and that the execution would "move forward as scheduled".

Barton has maintained his innocence over the 1991 murder of 81-year-old trailer park operator Gladys Kuehler.

Ms Kuehler was found beaten, sexually assaulted and stabbed more than 50 times in the town of Ozark, near Springfield.

Barton's attorney, Fred Duchardt Jr, has asked for a stay of execution from the US Supreme Court, with several mistrials and overturned convictions marking Barton's three-decade path to the death penalty.

Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty submitted a petition with more than 5,000 signatures urging the governor to grant clemency, while six jurors involved in Barton's 2006 trial now expressing misgivings based on comments from a blood spatter expert made on behalf of the defence team.