KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The state of Missouri is scheduled to execute a death row inmate late Tuesday night and it’s the first execution in Missouri in nearly four years.
Missourians against the death penalty are silently standing against the planned execution of Dennis Skillicorn. But the parents of many murdered children say Missouri needs capital punishment.
With his appeals exhausted, Skillicorn is set to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m.
A jury convicted and sentenced Skillicorn in connection with the murder of Richard Drummond of excelsior springs in 1994.
Tuesday afternoon, the Gov. Jay Nixon’s Office released that Nixon denied the petition for clemency. In Nixon’s statement, he said, “the jury that convicted Dennis Skillicorn determined that he deserved the most severe punishment under Missouri law, and my decision on clemency upholds the jury’s action.”
The execution is controversial - - the American Civil Liberties Union is against the death sentence.
"Dennis Skillicorn, while he's not a model citizen, is not the worst of the worst,” Donnie Morehouse with the ACLU said.
Skillicorn never pulled the trigger, but he's scheduled to die Tuesday night for being with the man who did and for traveling with that man to Arizona, eluding police for days.
Death penalty advocates say Skillicorn should still pay with his life.
"I believe in an eye for an eye,” Misty Kirwan, a murder victim’s mother, said.
Wednesday is the two year anniversary of the murder of Kirwan’s son and while her son’s case is unrelated to Skillicorn, Kirwan said she understands the emotions first hand.
"If my son can't live, the person that killed him doesn't deserve to, either,” Kirwan said
She said the death penalty doesn't make things easier, but it does save victims' families from dealing with criminal procedures that often times last decades.
“You still have to live it every day and when you have to go to parole hearings you have to face that killer,” Kirwan said.
Dennis Skillicorn's Kansas-City-based attorneys have spent the day working for his release, issuing videos on
YouTube of 12 prison guards and staffers who are pleading to see Skillicorn live.
NBC Action News tried contacting the family of murder victim Richard Drummond. A relative said it’s hard to talk about the crime this many years later and that they just hop it will be over soon.
The protest is expected to go until 6 p.m. Tuesday. Missouri's next execution is set for June 17. Reginald Clemons was sentenced to death for throwing two young women off a St. Louis bridge in 1991.
