O'FALLON, Mo. – Missouri is moving ahead with plans to execute a man next week, despite new concerns about key evidence that led to his conviction, and despite concerns about the coronavirus that prompted other states to postpone lethal injections.
Walter Barton, 64, is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for killing 81-year-old trailer park operator Gladys Kuehler in 1991.
She was beaten, sexually assaulted and stabbed more than 50 times in the town of Ozark, near Springfield. The execution would be the first in the U.S.
since March 5. Three jurors involved in Barton's 2006 trial now express misgivings, based on new blood spatter evidence, Barton’s attorney, Fred Duchardt Jr., said Wednesday.