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 Richard Strong, 48, is scheduled to die by lethal injection after
6 p.m. CDT at a Missouri state prison. He would be the fourth person
executed in Missouri this year and the 16th in the United States if
the execution is carried out.
According to court records, Strong had dark red stains on the pants
of his knees and was sweating profusely when police responded to a
911 call at his girlfriend's home near St. Louis in October 2000.
An officer kicked in the door after seeing what appeared to be blood
on Strong's hand. Strong ran, repeatedly shouting: "Just shoot me"
and then: "I killed them" when he was captured moments later,
according to court papers.
Authorities found the bodies of Eva Washington and Zandrea Thomas,
who had been stabbed nine and 21 times respectively. Strong's
3-month-old daughter with Washington was unharmed.
 The couple's daughter, Alyshia Strong, now a teenager, has asked
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to grant her father clemency, saying it
would be wrong for her to suffer another loss. The petition was
under review, a spokesman for Nixon said.
In appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, Strong's attorneys have argued
for a stay of execution, saying he has a history of mental illness
and major depression and did not have the capacity to make a
rational decision when he committed the killings.
Strong's father was an abusive alcoholic who bruised and bloodied
his mother on a regular basis and had numerous criminal offenses,
the attorneys said.
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They have also sought a stay based on a case before the U.S. Supreme
Court that challenges the use of a particular drug in lethal
injections and have argued that Missouri's execution method posed a
substantial risk of causing severe and unacceptable pain and
suffering.
Missouri prosecutors opposing a stay said in court filings that the
state had carried out "uniformly rapid and painless executions on
almost a monthly basis using pentobarbital as the lethal chemical
since November 2013."
The state offers valium and midazolam as voluntary sedatives before
executions, but five of the last six inmates executed have not
received pre-execution sedatives, Missouri said.
(Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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