Two men who killed KC area children among first federal executions in nearly 20 years
The Department of Justice this week set the execution dates for four federal death row inmates, including two convicted in the Western District of Missouri.
Wesley Purkey, who in 1998 raped and killed a Kansas City teenager before dismembering her body, is set to be executed July 15, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Purkey was sentenced to death in January 2004 after he was convicted of kidnapping 16-year-old Jennifer Long.
He was also convicted in Wyandotte County of murdering Mary Ruth Bales, 80, of Kansas City, Kansas. She was killed with a hammer.
Lawyers for Purkey, now 68, have said he has advancing Alzheimer’s disease and does not understand why the government wants to execute him. They argued the execution would therefore violate his constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment.
“No execution should proceed unless and until the question of Wes’ competency is resolved,” said Purkey’s attorney, Rebecca Woodman.
The other man set to die is Keith D. Nelson, who kidnapped, raped and killed a 10-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, girl in 1999.
The girl, Pamela Butler, was rollerblading near her house when Nelson grabbed her, threw her into a pickup truck and sped away, according to prosecutors. Her body was later found in a wooded area in Grain Valley.
Nelson was the subject of a highly-publicized manhunt. His arrest was broadcast live on television. He was linked to the crime by DNA, and he pleaded guilty in 2001 to interstate kidnapping resulting in death.
He is set to be executed Aug. 28.
Executions on the federal level have been rare and the government has put to death three defendants since restoring the federal death penalty in 1988 — most recently in 2003, when Louis Jones died for the 1995 kidnapping, rape and murder of a female soldier.
The scheduled executions will be the first carried out by the federal government since 2003. The announcement came Monday after a months-long legal battle.
Though there hasn’t been a federal execution since 2003, the Justice Department has continued to approve death penalty prosecutions and federal courts have sentenced defendants to death.
The two other inmates who will be executed are Daniel Lewis Lee, who was convicted in Arkansas of killing a family of three, including an 8-year-old, and Dustin Lee Honken, who killed five people in Iowa, including two children.
“We owe it to the victims of these horrific crimes, and to the families left behind, to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system,” said Attorney General William Barr in a statement.
The Justice Department said additional executions will be scheduled later.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
