EXECUTION #29

Dennis James Skillicorn
Executed May 20, 2009 12:34 a.m. by Lethal Injection in Missouri
29th murderer executed in U.S. in 2009
1165th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
1st murderer executed in Missouri in 2009
67th murderer executed in Missouri since 1976
Summary:
Dennis Skillicorn, Allen Nicklasson, and Tim DeGraffenreid headed east from Kansas City to obtain illegal drugs. During their return trip their car broke down. They eventually burglarized a nearby home of Merlin Smith, stealing guns and money. They paid for a tow, but the garage was unable to repair the car. The drove back anyway and the car stalled again. Richard Drummond stopped and offered to drive the group to use a phone. They responded by kidnapping him at gunpoint, and later leading him into the woods off I-70 where Nicklasson shot him twice with a .22 caliber pistol. Drummond’s remains were found eight days later. Skillicorn and Nicklasson fled to Arizona, where their car got stuck in sand. Another good Samaritan, Joseph Babcock, 47, tried to help. Nicklasson murdered him and his wife, Charlene, 38. Nicklasson and Skillicorn were convicted of first-degree murder. Nicklasson is also on death row. DeGraffenreid, who was 17 when the crime took place, served time for second-degree murder.
Skillicorn was parolled in 1992 after serving 13 years for a previous murder conviction.

Final Meal:
Skillicorn dined alone in his cell, devouring a double-bacon cheeseburger and potato chips that was delivered from the Crossroads Restaurant & Lounge near the Bonne Terre prison. The 49-year-old murderer did not have anything for dessert.
Final Words:
"The sorrow, despair and regrets of my life would most certainly have consumed me if not for the grace and mercy of a loving and living God who saved me," Skillicorn wrote in a lengthy final statement read to reporters by Department of Corrections' spokesman Jacqueline LaPine. "As a husband, I've been overjoyed to know the love of a woman, unlike any I've ever known. She shall forever be by soul mate and I hers." His wife, Paula Barr, is a staff writer for the newspaper the Daily Journal in Park Hills, Mo.
Skillicorn apologized to the family of the victim, Richard Drummond, saying that "for the last 15 years I've lived with the remorse of my actions.
The Execution
Before midnight, he is to be strapped to a table and hooked to an intravenous tube, through which 5 grams of thiopental, a heavy barbiturate, will be injected. Under new procedures, the executioners will wait three minutes to make sure he is unconscious, then inject a second drug to paralyze him and a third to stop his heart.
He received the first injection at 12:23 a.m. at the prison in Bonne Terre and died 11 minutes later.