BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A twice-convicted murderer who strangled a 9-year-old girl in St. Louis in 1986 was executed early Wednesday after a split vote by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Vernon Brown, 51, was pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m. at the Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center, nearly 2 1/2 hours after his execution was scheduled.
The execution was delayed when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued a temporary stay shortly after midnight. But on a 5-4 vote, the court later lifted that stay and denied the stay.
Lawyers for Brown had argued that the drugs used in lethal injection could cause him excessive pain. They also said he was sexually and physically abused as a child, suffered a head injury and was on the drug PCP at the time of the murder.
But Dianne Perkins, the aunt of murdered fourth grader Janet Perkins, said the killer had the benefit of almost two decades of life denied to her niece. "He lived for years, but she only saw nine," Perkins said.