Man who kidnapped, raped, killed 10-year-old KCK girl in 1999 is executed in Indiana
Keith D. Nelson, the man who kidnapped, raped and killed a 10-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, girl in 1999 was executed by lethal injection Friday afternoon at an Indiana federal prison, according to the Associated Press.
Nelson, 45, admitted to kidnapping Pamela Butler while she was rollerblading near her house. Nelson grabbed the girl, threw her into a pickup truck and sped away. Her sister chased the truck as it drove away.
Several days after Pamela was kidnapped, her body was found in a wooded area in Grain Valley, Missouri.
The Bureau of Prisons said Nelson died at 3:32 p.m. Central time. Nelson became the fifth federal inmate put to death this year. Nelson lost an appeal on whether the drug pentobarbital causes pain prior to death.
In court filings, attorneys for Nelson argued that pentobarbital, which depresses the central nervous system and, in high doses, eventually stops the heart.
On Friday, Nelson did not speak when a prison official standing over him asked if he had any last words. A prison official waited 15 seconds for Nelson to respond before he administered the lethal injection. Nelson was pronounced dead about nine minutes later, the Associated Press reported.
The kidnapping occurred in broad daylight after Butler, a fifth-grade student, was on inline skates after buying cookies from a store. Nelson made an inappropriate gesture to Butler’s sister as he sped away.
Nelson did not know the child or her family prior to the kidnapping. However, Nelson told a co-worker a month earlier he planned to find a female to kidnap, torture, rape and kill because he expected going back to prison for another unrelated crime.
Authorities linked the killing to Nelson’s DNA. He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Kansas City in 2001 to a charge of interstate kidnapping resulting in death.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 5:41 PM.
