Missouri carries out 10th execution of the year

BONNE TERRE, Mo., Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Missouri carried out its 10th execution of 2014 early Wednesday after lawyers for Paul Goodwin argued unsuccessfully that he is intellectually disabled.

Goodwin, 48, was put to death for killing Jean Crotts, 63, with a hammer in 1998. Crotts was also sexually assaulted, and prosecutors said Goodwin was angry because he believed she had helped get him evicted from a boarding house next to her home in St. Louis County.

The 10 executions in Missouri this year is a record since the state resumed use of the death penalty in 1989. It also matches Texas, the state that normally leads the country in use of the death penalty.

Goodwin died hours after Robert Wayne Holsey was put to death in Georgia for killing a police officer in 1995. In both cases, lawyers argued that the executions violated U.S. Supreme Court rulings on executing the intellectually disabled, but the high court refused stays.

Mary Mifflin, Goodwin's sister, described her brother in a statement as a "man with the mental capabilities of a child, not an adult." She said he was unable to manage his own life without assistance and fell apart when his girlfriend died.

"The one absolute certainty for this examiner over the 12 years I have been involved with this case is that Paul Terrence Goodwin is now, and probably always has been, mentally retarded," Denis Keyes, a psychologist who examined Goodwin, wrote.

Gov. Jay Nixon refused to stop the execution, citing the "brutal" crime Goodwin committed. Crotts' children welcomed Goodwin's death.

"I've been sitting back waiting for this to happen," Debbie Decker, her daughter, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I'm hoping all these bad memories will go away."