A CONVICTED murderer who beat a six-year-old girl to death more than 20 years ago has been executed.
Johnny Johnson, 45, was killed via lethal injection at a prison in Missouri on Tuesday evening.
He beat Casey Williamson to death with a rock at an abandoned glass factory in Valley Park, a suburb about 20 miles west of St. Louis, in July 2002, The Associated Press reported.
Johnson initially tried to sexually assault the six-year-old, but decided to murder Williamson after she started screaming.
He then washed the blood off himself in a nearby creek.
Corrections officials have released a brief note Johnson wrote before his death.
“God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt,” he said.
Johnson suffered from schizophrenia and believed the devil was using his death as a way to bring about the end of the world.
He was executed after the US Supreme Court rejected a motion from Johnson’s lawyers to have the execution stayed.
They argued that due to his mental illness, Johnson couldn’t understand the link between his crime and the punishment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor and two other members of the court dissented.
“The Court today paves the way to execute a man with documented mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his competency to be executed,” they wrote.
“There is no moral victory in executing someone who believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the world.”
But police, prosecutors, and some of Casey’s family members believe the execution was just.
“He did something horrible. He took a life away from a completely innocent child, and there have to be consequences for that,” Casey’s great-aunt Della Steele said.
The girl’s disappearance set off a massive search effort in Valley Park.
Johnson, the brother of a childhood friend of Casey’s mother, lured the girl to the glass factory while she was still in her nightgown.
The family had let Johnson stay on their couch after a barbecue the night before.
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