MISSOURI (USA): JEFFREY FERGUSON EXECUTED

Jeffrey Ferguson, 59, White, was executed in Missouri.
Ferguson abducted Kelli Hall, 17, at gun point as she finished her shift at a gas station in St. Charles on Feb. 9, 1989. Her naked, frozen body was found 13 days later on a St. Louis County farm, and investigators determined she had been raped and strangled.
An acquaintance suspicious about Ferguson led police to him, and he was convicted of first-degree murder. Co-defendant Kenneth Ousley pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder in 1993; he is serving a life term but is eligible for parole. Missouri switched to a 1-drug execution method late last year. The state obtains the drug, pentobarbital, from a compounding pharmacy that it refuses to name. Ferguson becomes the 3rd inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri, the 73rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1989, the 13th this year in the USA and the 1372nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.