U. S. Supreme Court rejects Rowan Ford killer's last-ditch attempt to avoid death penalty

The U. S. Supreme Court Tuesday rejected a last-ditch effort by lawyers representing Chris Collings to save their client from the death sentence.

Collings is scheduled to be executed 6 p.m. Tuesday, December 3, for the 2007 murder of Rowan Ford, 9, a fourth grader at Triway Elementary in Stella.

The Court denied a writ of certiorari for Collings in April, meaning it would not even hear Collings' case.

Collings' attorney filed a motion to file a supplemental appendix to the petition for a writ of certiorari under seal. The court once again denied the request.

Collings' efforts to stave off the death penalty were rejected by the Missouri Supreme Court August 15.

Public defenders working on Collings' behalf, filed the long shot motion to have his sentence tossed out claiming the defense was not told that a chief witness against Collings, former Wheaton Police Chief Clifford Clark had violated Collings' rights in obtaining a confession from him and had a record of illegal activity when he was serving in the military.

In the motion, the public defender also noted that another man, Rowan Ford's stepfather David Spears, had also confessed to the crime.

The motions to the U. S. and Missouri supreme courts were filed after Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a motion to the Missouri Supreme Court April 2 asking that an execution date be scheduled for Collings, who has been on death row since May 11, 2012, after he was convicted by a Platte County jury following a two-week trial.

In his motion, Bailey detailed Collings' crimes:

In November of 2007, Christopher Collings abducted, raped, and murdered nine-year-old Rowan Ford of Stella, Missouri, in Newton County.

Afterwards, Collings threw the victim’s body in a sinkhole near Powell, Missouri in McDonald County. Collings also burned the rope he used to strangle the victim, the blood-stained clothing he wore during the attack, and his blood-stained mattress. Collings eventually confessed to the police.

Collings was convicted in Phelps County by a jury selected from Platte County. During the punishment phase of the trial, the jury found that Collings had tortured the victim in a way that was vile, horrible, and inhumane. The jury also found that Collings murdered the victim to prevent her from testifying against him regarding the rape.

Collings’s conviction and sentence have been reviewed by the Missouri Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. No court has ever found any legal errors.