POTOSI, Mo. (AP) — A man who fatally shot a father in front of his two young children only days after being accidentally released from jail was executed early Wednesday.
Jeffrey Tokar, 37, died just after midnight at the Potosi Correctional Center, prison spokesman John Fougere said.
Tokar became the third inmate executed this year, the 56th since Missouri resumed capital punishment in 1989 and the tenth since Gov. Bob Holden took office a year ago.
Tokar was convicted 10 years ago of murdering Johnny Douglass at his home during what began as a burglary.
After completing sentences for stealing and driving while intoxicated, Tokar was scheduled to begin a seven-year state sentence for a 1991 burglary conviction. Instead, he was accidentally released.
Five days later, on March 11, 1992, Tokar and his girlfriend, Sandra Stickley, picked the Douglass residence while looking for an unattended house to burglarize. The pair were still inside when Douglass and his two children, ages 4 and 9, returned home.
Tokar, using a shotgun he found at the home, confronted the family in the garage, where he shot Douglass twice in the head.
Stickley pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.