April 9 (UPI) — Missouri went forward with Tuesday’s scheduled execution of Brian Dorsey, who was convicted of murdering his cousin and her husband in 2006, after being denied clemency this week despite calls from prison guards to spare Dorsey’s life.
Dorsey, age 52, was executed Tuesday night by lethal injection of pentobarbital in what was Missouri’s first execution of 2024. The state conducted four executions in 2023.
Dorsey was pronounced dead at 6: 11 p.m. local time at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center — a 2,684-bed prison facility in Bonne Terre, an hour south of St. Louis.
“I have peace in my heart, in large part because of you, and I thank you,” Dorsey wrote to family in his final statement. “To all those on all sides of this sentence, I carry no ill will or anger, only acceptance and understanding.”
“Words cannot hold the just weight of my guilt and shame,” he wrote in his last note in his own hand.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said in a statement Monday denying Dorsey clemency that he “punished his loving family for helping him in a time of need.”
Dorsey pleaded guilty to killing his cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband, Ben Bonnie, during the night of Dec. 23, 2006, after they rescued him from drug dealers who were trying to collect debts. According to court filings, Dorsey shot the couple with their own shotgun, while their 4-year-old daughter was in the home. Prosecutors then accused Dorsey of sexually assaulting his cousin. He also stole jewelry and their car to repay his drug debts.
“His cousins invited him into their home, where he was surrounded by family and friends, then gave him a place to stay. Dorsey repaid them with cruelty, inhumane violence and murder,” the Republican governor said Monday in denying Dorsey clemency.
The bodies were discovered by Sarah Bonnie’s parents after the couple failed to show up for a Christmas Eve