Missouri executes a man for sexually assaulting and strangling a 9-year-old girl in 2007

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for sexually assaulting and killing a 9-year-old girl, then dumping her body in a sinkhole outside a small, rural town.

Christopher Collings, 49, was a friend of the family of the victim, fourth-grader Rowan Ford — so much so that he lived with the family for several months before the girl’s death in November 2007. He sometimes helped Rowan with her homework. She knew him as “Uncle Chris.”

Collings was put to death with an injection of a single dose of pentobarbital and pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. CST at the state prison in Bonne Terre. The execution was the 23rd in the U.S. this year and the fourth in Missouri. Only Alabama with six and Texas with five have performed more executions in 2024.

Collings spoke with a spiritual adviser who was at his side as the process began. Shortly thereafter, he appeared to breathe heavily and swallow hard. After a few seconds, all movement stopped. He was officially declared dead nine minutes after the injection.

Collings’ fate was sealed Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside an appeal and Republican Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency.

“Right or wrong I accept this situation for what it is,” Collings said in a written final statement. “To anyone that I have hurt in this life I am sorry. I hope that you are able to get closure and move on.” He added, “I hope to see you in heaven one day.”

Parson, in a statement, said he hopes that “all those who knew and loved Rowan may find peace in knowing that justice has been done.”

Rowan was described by teachers at Collings’ trial as a hard-working and happy student, a lover of Barbie who had her room painted pink.

Collings told authorities that he drank heavily and smoked marijuana with Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, and another man in the hours before the attack on Rowan, according to court records. Collings said he picked up the still-sleeping child from her bed and took her to the camper where he lived, where he assaulted her.

Collings planned to take Rowan back home, leading her outside the camper facing away from him so that she couldn’t identify him, he said in his confession. But when moonlight lit up the darkness, Rowan was able to see Collings, he told police. He said he “freaked out,” grabbed a rope from a nearby pickup truck, and strangled her.

Rowan’s mother, Colleen Munson, returned home from work at 9 a.m. on Nov. 3, 2007, and was alarmed when she couldn’t find Rowan, walking the neighborhood looking for her. Court records said Spears insisted Rowan was at a friend’s house. But when Rowan failed to return home by the afternoon, the mother called police, prompting a massive search.

Collings, Spears and the third man became the focus of police attention because they were the last people seen at Rowan’s home. Collings confessed to the crime and told police that after killing Rowan, he took the body to a sinkhole. He burned the rope used in the attack, along with the clothes he was wearing and his blood-stained mattress, prosecutors said.

Court documents and the clemency petition said Spears also implicated himself in the crimes. A transcript of Spears’ statement to police, cited in the clemency petition, said Spears told police that Collings handed him a cord and Spears killed Rowan.

“I choke her with it. I realize she’s gone. She’s ... she’s really gone,” Spears said, according to the transcript. Meanwhile, court documents said it was Spears who led authorities to the sinkhole where the body was found.

But Spears was allowed to plead to lesser charges. It wasn’t clear why. Prosecutors at the original trial didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Spears served more than seven years in prison before being released in 2015. No phone listing for him could be found.

The clemency petition said Collings suffered from a brain abnormality that created “functional deficits in awareness, judgment and deliberation, comportment, appropriate social inhibition, and emotional regulation.” It also noted that he was frequently abused and sexually abused as a child.

“The result was a damaged human being with no guidance on how to grow into a functioning adult,” the petition stated.

The clemency petition and the Supreme Court appeal both challenged the reliability of the key law enforcement witness at Collings’ trial, a police chief from a neighboring town who had four AWOL convictions while serving in the Army. Failure to disclose details about that criminal history at trial violated Collings’ right to due process, Collings’ attorney, Jeremy Weis, contended.

“His credibility was really at the heart of the entire case against Mr. Collings,” Weis said in an interview.

This last name of the victim's mother has been corrected throughout to Munson, not Spears.

This undated photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows Christopher Collings. (Missouri Department of Corrections via AP)

The commencement of the holiday season often means the lengthening of to-do lists.

There are lights to hang, cards to mail, cookies to bake and, of course, gifts to buy. Gift exchanges, whether they’re among friends, family or co-workers, can be a fun way to get in the holiday spirit. But can also be another stressor during a busy time of year.

Secret Santa exchanges — where participants are assigned a gift recipient and tasked with finding them a perfect present within a price limit — sometimes mean that those in friend groups are paired with “frenemies,” someone inevitably draws themselves, or colleagues who are virtually strangers are matched up.

Those possible pitfalls inspired Peter Imburg to create Elfster, a free online Secret Santa organizer, after he saw the time and effort it took to coordinate the logistics of a gift exchange with his family over 20 years ago.

More top-down organization, he says, helps things run more smoothly.

Elfster, for instance, creates pairings, asks for wish lists, offers gift suggestions at different price points and sends reminders, among other features meant to make the organizational hurdles of a gift exchange less daunting.

“The organizer is like the hero. They make it all happen," Imburg said, adding that his site aims "to make it a lot easier for the organizer to do that with a minimal amount of effort.”

Cameron Rogers, a New Jersey-based social media content creator and podcast host on wellness and motherhood, understands the stress that gift exchanges can bring up.

“Having to give generic gifts to people I’m not necessarily close with is extremely difficult,” Rogers said. “I can pick a good gift for my husband or my kids or my mom, but for people who I don’t know the ins and outs of their lives, I think it’s hard to pick something that you know they’re actually going to enjoy.”

She recently shared a guide to Secret Santa gifts under $50 on her social media channels, emphasizing how challenging it can be to find something within a set price range that will be well-received.

Gifts with a specific purpose — kitchen gadgets, home items or winter gear — and gifts that have a personalized aspect like a monogram are good go-to options for anyone feeling lost after receiving their Secret Santa assignment, she said.

Imburg said the “gift gurus” at Elfster also have suggestions, especially for recipients who aren’t offering any clues as to what they’d like. In a similar vein as Rogers, the Elfster team offered ideas for some practical gifts, like water bottles, blankets and massage guns. Other no-nonsense home and kitchen items, like food storage containers, charging stations and more are featured on the site’s “Top Trending Gift Ideas for 2024” list.

Gift cards, although they are not particularly glamorous, are an essentially foolproof option, Rogers said, and they won’t leave your recipient wondering where they’ll find room on their shelf for another mug or book.

“I don’t want to give someone something solely to check a box,” Rogers said. “I want them to enjoy it, instead of being like, ‘What do I do with this now?’”

Some gift-givers find that Secret Santa (and its many counterparts like White Elephant and Yankee Swap) actually cuts down on stress and spending, as it's often done in place of giving individual presents to each member of a group.

Nicole Troiano of Cranston, Rhode Island, finds them to be a fun way to handle holidays with large groups — even if co-workers may need to ask around to get specifics on their assigned person.

“It’s fun to do it that way and think about something that would be good for that person,” she said. “And then, when they open it, they’re like, ‘Oh my God!’”

By the weekend after Thanksgiving, Troiano had already purchased and wrapped her gift for the exchange she’s taking part in this year. After her swap, a lucky participant will be the new owner of a cutting board, two bottles of wine wearing bottle-size ugly sweaters, and gourmet chocolates.

FILE - Presents appear at the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia on Dec. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut, File)

FILE - A shopper carries a Christmas-themed bag in London on Dec. 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)

(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)