Missouri Executes|Sixth Man This Year

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (CN) - Missouri on Tuesday executed its sixth inmate this year, for the 1989 kidnap, rape and stabbing of a 15-year-old girl.

Roderick Nunley, 50, was injected with lethal chemicals at 8:58 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m.

Nunley and Michael Taylor kidnapped Ann Harrison as she waited for a school bus just 20 yards from her Kansas City-area home in March 1989. Prosecutors said Nunley and Taylor had binged on cocaine and decided to kidnap Harrison on the spur of the moment.

Her body was found was found three days later in the trunk of an abandoned stolen car.

Nunley and Taylor were arrested months later after an inmate, seeking a $10,000 reward, turned them in. Both men confessed. Taylor was executed last year.

Gov. Jay Nixon denied Nunley's clemency request on Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court also denied several appeals by Nunley's attorney.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster lamented how long it took to kill Nunley.

"Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber," Koster said Tuesday. "Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome."

Missouri is second only to Texas in executions this year. Of the 20 executions carried out throughout the country in 2015, all but four have occurred in Texas or Missouri.

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