6 p.m. (AP) – Missouri is one step closer to performing its first execution under the state’s new drug protocol after Gov. Jay Nixon refused to halt the lethal injection of white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin.

Franklin is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing 42-year-old Gerald Gordon in a sniper attack outside a suburban St. Louis synagogue in 1977.

He was convicted of seven other murders but the Missouri case was the only one resulting in a death sentence.

3 p.m. update    (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has refused to halt the execution of white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, calling his crime in Missouri a “cowardly and calculated shooting.”

Nixon’s office announced the decision Monday afternoon.

Franklin is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing 42-year-old Gerald Gordon in a sniper attack outside a suburban St. Louis synagogue in 1977. It was one of as many as 20 killings committed by Franklin, who targeted blacks and Jews in a cross-country killing spree from 1977 to 1980. He was convicted of seven other murders but the Missouri case was the only one resulting in a death sentence.

The execution would be the first in Missouri in nearly three years and the first ever in the state to use a single execution drug, the sedative pentobarbital.

 

 

12 noon Monday(AP) The Missouri Supreme Court and Gov. Jay Nixon continue to weigh requests to halt the execution of Joseph Paul Franklin, with time dwindling before the serial killer is scheduled to be put to death.

Franklin’s execution is scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Wednesday at the prison in Bonne Terre, Mo. It would be the first execution in Missouri using a single execution drug, pentobarbital.

It was one of up to 20 killings believed committed by Franklin, a white supremacist who targeted blacks and Jews in a cross-country killing spree from 1977 to 1980. He was convicted of seven other murders but the Missouri case was the only one that resulted in a death sentence.