JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Supreme Court has ordered condemned killer Robert O'Neal to be executed Jan. 22, 1987, in the gas chamber at the state penitentiary.
The court issued the order Tuesday while rejecting without comment O'Neal's motion for a rehearing of an appeal denied by the court last month.
O'Neal has numerous legal grounds remaining for appeals and the order for his execution is likely to be stayed. He is one of 45 men held on the state's death row. The death penalty last was carried out in Missouri in 1965.
O'Neal, 25, was an inmate at the penitentiary when he was convicted and sentenced to die for murdering another prisoner. Arthur Dade, 32, was stabbed to death by O'Neal on Feb. 3, 1984.
Both O'Neal and Dade were residents of the Special Management Unit, a special prison inside the penitentiary. The unit, referred to by convicts as 'Supermax,' is used for the confinement of about 400 of the most unruly and troublesome inmates at the maximum security penitentiary.
Convicted of murder along with O'Neal in Dade's slaying were two other convicts, Lloyd Schlup and Rodney Stewart. Schlup received a death sentence and Stewart was sentenced to life in prison.
Law enforcement authorities said Stewart threw a cup of hot water in Dade's face and Schlup held Dade while O'Neal stabbed him with a homemade weapon resembling an ice pick. He plunged the weapon into Dade's chest four times, striking the heart and lungs.
Prosecutors told the state Supreme Court that O'Neal is white and Dade was black. O'Neal has been affiliated with the Aryan Nations, a white supremacy group that has members in prisons throughout the nation, prosecutors said.
