Serial Killer Joseph Paul Franklin Executed in Missouri

Missouri has executed Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist killer who targeted blacks and Jews during a multistate crime spree from 1977-1980.

Franklin, 63, was put to death for the 1977 sniper killing of Gerald Gordon at a suburban St. Louis synagogue. The U.S. Supreme Court early Wednesday upheld a federal appeals court decision overturning stays granted Tuesday by federal judges in Jefferson City, Mo., and St. Louis.

Mike O’Connell, of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said the execution got the final okay from Gov. Jay Nixon at 6:05 a.m.

By this time, Franklin was already in the state’s death chamber at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, ready for the injection. He received a lethal injection at 6:07 a.m., and his death was confirmed at 6:17 a.m.

The execution was the first in Missouri using a single drug, pentobarbital. Three media witnesses said Franklin did not seem to express pain. He did not make any final written statement and did not speak a word in the death chamber.

Nixon said in a statement: “The cowardly and calculated shootings outside a St. Louis-area synagogue were part of Joseph Paul Franklin’s long record of murders and other acts of extreme violence across the country, fueled by religious and racial hate.” He asked that Gordon be remembered and that Franklin’s victims and their families remain in the thoughts and prayers of Missourians.

This article appeared in print on page 2 of the November 21st, 2013 edition of Hamodia.