Ernest Johnson execution: Triple killer given lethal injection despite plea from Pope

A triple killer has been executed in the US, despite pleas from those who said he should be spared because of learning disabilities.

Ernest Johnson was given a lethal injection on Tuesday at Bonne Terre prison in Missouri.

Back in 1994, Johnson killed three people at a convenience store while trying to rob the shop to get money for drugs.

His victims were Mary Bratcher, 46, Mabel Scruggs, 57, and Fred Jones, 58.

Johnson was sentenced to death three times. The second death sentence, in 2003, came after the US Supreme Court ruled executing the mentally ill was unconstitutionally cruel. The Missouri Supreme Court threw out that second death sentence, and Johnson was sentenced a third time in 2006.

His pending execution led to protests and the Pope issued a plea for clemency.

Johnson had a history of scoring extremely low on IQ tests, dating back to childhood. His attorney, Jeremy Weis, said Johnson also was born with foetal alcohol syndrome and lost about one-fifth of his brain tissue when a benign tumour was removed in 2008.

A representative for Pope Francis was among those who urged Republican Governor Mike Parson to grant clemency, writing in a letter that the Pope “wishes to place before you the simple fact of Mr Johnson’s humanity and the sacredness of all human life.”

Mr Parson announced on Monday that he would not intervene.

In 2018, Pope Francis changed church teaching to say capital punishment can never be sanctioned because it constitutes an 'attack' on human dignity.

Racial justice activists and two Missouri members of Congress — Democratic US Representatives Cori Bush of St Louis and Emmanuel Cleaver of Kansas City — also called on Parson to show mercy to Johnson - but were turned down.

In his written last statement, Johnson said he was sorry “and have remorse for what I do". He said he loved his family and friends and thanked those who prayed for him.

He was pronounced dead at 6.11pm and silently mouthed words to relatives as the process began.

A corrections department spokesperson said four relatives representing all three victims were present. Johnson’s witnesses included relatives and his lawyer. No relatives spoke after the execution.

Johnson's death was the first execution in Missouri since May 2020 and just the seventh in the US this year.

How Johnson's killings unfolded almost 28 years ago

Johnson was a frequent customer of a Casey’s General Store in Columbia. Court records show that on February, 12, 1994, he borrowed a .25-caliber pistol from his girlfriend’s 18-year-old son, with plans to rob the store for money to buy drugs.

In a 2004 videotaped interview with a psychologist shown in court, Johnson said he was under the influence of cocaine as he waited for the last customer to leave at closing time.

Three workers were in the store: manager Mary Bratcher and employees Mabel Scruggs and Fred Jones.

On the video, Johnson said he became angry when Bratcher, who claimed not to have a safe key, tried to flush it down the toilet.

He shot the victims with the borrowed gun, then attacked them with a claw hammer. Bratcher also was stabbed in the hand with a screwdriver. Police found two victims in the store’s bathroom, and the third in a cooler.

“This was a hideous crime,” said Kevin Crane, the Boone County prosecutor at the time. “It was traumatic, and it was intense.”

Police officers searching a nearby field found a bloody screwdriver, gloves, jeans and a brown jacket, and questioned Johnson within hours of the killings.

At Johnson’s girlfriend’s house, officers found a bag with $443, coin wrappers, partially burned checks and tennis shoes matching bloody shoe prints from inside the store.

Johnson had previously asked that his execution be carried out by firing squad. His lawyers argued that Missouri’s lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, could trigger seizures due to the loss of the brain tissue when the tumour was removed.

Missouri law does not authorise execution by firing squad.

Of the six previous US executions this year, three were in Texas and three involved federal prisoners.

The peak year for modern executions was 1999, when there were 98 across the US. That number has gradually declined and just 17 people were executed last year — 10 involving federal prisoners, three in Texas and one each in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Missouri, according to a database compiled by the Death Penalty Information Centre.