BONNE TERRE, Mo. – Missouri Governor Mike Parson says the state will move forward with the execution of a man who abducted and killed a 6-year-old girl in Valley Park.
Johnny Johnson is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday night by lethal injection for the murder of six-year-old Casey Williamson. It’s a case that’s haunted St. Louis for more than two decades.
The last was photo taken of Casey was 36 hours before her death, singing songs at church. Johnson kidnapped the little girl from her home in Valley Park on July 26, 2002. He was 24 at the time.
He murdered her inside an abandoned glass factory along the Meramec River after she fought back against him attempting to sexually assault her. After a huge search, Casey’s body was found in a pit less than a mile from her home, buried beneath rocks and debris.
Last week marked the 21st anniversary of Casey Williamson’s disappearance and death. The judge who sentenced Johnson in 2005 told the court it was “perhaps the most heinous crime” he had ever presided over.
Johnson’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution. They also asked Governor Parson to reduce Johnson’s sentence to life in prison — claiming he’s mentally incompetent.
A three-judge panel halted Johnson’s execution last week. However, the Missouri Supreme Court and federal appeals court overturned that ruling, allowing the execution to move forward Tuesday night in Bonne Terre.
FOX 2’s Mandy Murphey has interviewed Casey’s mom Angie several times over the years. She sat down with her recently to talk about how Johnson tore apart her entire family and the agony for Casey’s family continues to this day.
“My father and my brother were the ones to identify Casey’s body when it happened,” Angie explained. “My brother had a complete mental breakdown and my father drank himself to death. It was more than they could process seeing Casey’s little body in the way he left it.”
Casey’s mother plans to be in Bonne Terre Tuesday night to witness the execution. Anti-death penalty protests are also expected., including one at t3:00 p.m. outside the Carnahan Courthouse at Market and Tucker.
Johnson would be the fourth person executed this year in Missouri, and the 16th nationally.