Missouri executes man despite daughter's plea

A Missouri man who killed his girlfriend and her 2-year-old daughter with a butcher knife has been put to death by lethal injection.

Richard Strong, 48, was executed Tuesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre, where he was pronounced dead at 6:58 p.m., said prison spokesman Mike O'Connell.

No family members or other witnesses attended the execution on Strong's behalf. St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch watched the lethal injection but declined comment other than to say he handled the case.

Strong was the 16th inmate executed in the United States this year. He was the fourth person executed in Missouri in 2015 and the 16th since November 2013. Only Texas has executed more inmates over that span.

The bodies of Eva Washington and daughter Zandrea Thomas were found in October 2000 in Washington's apartment in the St. Louis suburb of St. Ann. A butcher knife was found on a bed next to a pool of blood. Strong and Washington's 3-month-old, Alyshia Strong, was on the bed but wasn't harmed.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday evening refused to halt the planned execution even though his attorney asked the high court to put a stop to the execution, arguing that Strong was mentally ill.

Alyshia is now 14 and pleaded for her father's life in a clemency request that Gov. Jay Nixon denied.

She told The Associated Press in an interview Monday that she has forgiven her father.

"My father's a very important role model in my life," she said. "He's always been with me. He's the only surviving parent I have and I struggle in life. To see my father live would help me."

Investigators said Strong used a butcher knife to kill his girlfriend, Eva Washington, on Oct. 23, 2000, at her apartment in the St. Louis suburb of St. Ann. They said he then turned the knife on Washington's 2-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, Zandrea Thomas.

Police received a 911 call from the apartment that day and heard a scream during it. Officers headed to the residence, where Strong met them outside. He initially told them Washington was sleeping, then said she had gone to work.

Officers saw blood stains on his hand, and Strong tried to run. When they caught him, he admitted to the killings.

"Just shoot me, just shoot me," he said, according to court records. "I killed them."

Inside, police found the bodies. They also found a pool of blood on a bed, the knife next to it. They also found Alyshia, who was unhurt.

Strong's attorney, Jennifer Herndon, said both Strong and Washington suffered from mental illness and frequently argued.

"He just snapped," Herndon said. "It was just sort of a powder keg waiting to explode. It wasn't a healthy relationship."

Alyshia Strong was taken in by Strong's mother. Despite the killings, she grew close to her father, frequently visiting him in prison.

"l know some people probably wonder how I can have a relationship with my father given that he killed my mother, but we are very close," Alyshia wrote in seeking clemency for her father. "I am thankful I have him in my life."

"It is wrong for me to have another loss," she wrote. "I understand that my father needs to face consequences and to pay for what he did, but I do not think it is right for me to lose my father as part of the punishment."

Wire services