Man on death row for killing elderly Missouri couple during burglary dies in prison

A man on death row for killing an elderly couple in rural Missouri died in prison earlier this month.

Jesse Driskill died June 12, according to federal court records. The 43-year-old’s cause of death is not known, but an autopsy has been requested, said Karen Pojmann, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Death row prisoners are held at Potosi Correctional Center, about 70 miles southwest of St. Louis.

Driskill was arrested in the July 2010 murders of Johnnie Wilson, 82, and his wife Coleen Wilson, 76, in Laclede County, about 180 miles southeast of Kansas City.

The couple was celebrating their 59th wedding anniversary when they caught Driskill burglarizing their home.

He shot Coleen Wilson twice and sexually assaulted her, court records said. Johnnie Wilson was shot near his cheek, but his cause of death was listed as asphyxiation from a plastic bag that was found in his throat.

Driskill was convicted in August 2013 of two counts of first-degree murder, burglary, rape and sodomy and sentenced to death for each murder count.

During an appeal before the Missouri Supreme Court, attorneys for Driskill alleged that prosecutors failed to disclose a deal with a witness and that his trial lawyers were ineffective. In 2021, the court upheld his convictions.

Last August, attorneys filed a federal petition arguing his mental health during the trial forced him to be unable to be present for parts of the proceedings, which violated his right to due process. The case was still going through the courts at the time of Driskill’s death.

Thirteen men remain on death row in Missouri. An execution is scheduled for one of them, Johnny Johnson, on Aug. 1.

The state has carried out three executions so far this year, killing Amber McLaughlin on Jan. 3, Leonard “Raheem” Taylor on Feb. 7 and Michael Tisius on June 6.

This story was originally published June 21, 2023 at 12:19 PM.

Katie Moore

The Kansas City Star

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Katie Moore was an enterprise and accountability reporter for The Star. She covered justice issues, including policing, prison conditions and the death penalty. She is a University of Kansas graduate and began her career as a reporter in 2015 in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas.