BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) -- A man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 17-year-old girl in suburban St. Louis more than two decades ago was executed Wednesday in Missouri, marking the state's fifth execution in as many months.
Jeffrey Ferguson abducted Kelli Hall 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.
Strapped to a hospital gurney, Ferguson was animated in the moments before his midnight execution at the state prison in Bonne Terre. To ease the tension, he made funny faces and mouthed words to relatives, who included his two daughters, sitting in the observation room.
As the lethal drug was administered, he took a few deep breaths before becoming still, and his daughters cried as he closed his eyes. The 59-year-old was pronounced dead at 12:11 a.m.
"I'm sorry to have to be the cause that brings you all into this dark business of execution," Ferguson said in his final statement. "I pray for the victim's family to have peace in their hearts one day and lose the anger, hate and need for revenge that has driven them."
Hall's father, Jim, who also witnessed the execution along with his son and ex-wife, fought back tears as he described how Ferguson strangled his daughter as he raped her 25 years ago. He said it took "way too many years" to put him to death.
"This basically tore two families apart," he said after Ferguson's execution. "Hopefully, now we can move forward. ... Kelli can rest now."
Supporters also said Ferguson was remorseful, became deeply religious in prison, counseled inmates and helped start a prison hospice program. His attorney also said he was an alcoholic who blacked out the night of the murder.
"Society doesn't gain anything by his execution," Rita Linhardt of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Tuesday. "He's not the same man he was 24 years ago."
But St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch said Ferguson's good deeds in prison didn't make up for the senseless killing of an innocent teenager. He noted that it took several minutes for Hall to die.