Former prosecutor says Russell Bucklew's death was a 'stark contrast' to that of his victim

The State of Missouri executed Russell Bucklew on Tuesday, 23 years after violent episodes left a man dead.

Bucklew was declared dead at 6:23 p.m. at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, after authorities administered a lethal dose of pentobarbital.

The Associated Press reported no outward signs of distress as he died and said Bucklew’s attorneys, Cheryl Pilate and Jeremy Weis, said Bucklew was remorseful for his crimes.

Former Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney H. Morley Swingle, who tried the case, said Bucklew did not appear in any pain.

“His death was gentle and painless. He just closed his eyes and went to sleep,” he said in a cellphone interview. “That is in stark contrast to the violent, brutal death he inflicted on Michael Sanders.”

In 1996, Bucklew shot and killed Michael Sanders, who at the time was living with Bucklew’s ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Pruitt Ray. He shot Sanders in front of Ray, her two daughters and Sanders’ two sons. Bucklew abducted Pruitt, taking her to a remote area and raping her. He fled to St. Louis, getting into a gunfight with a law enforcement officer. After being taken into custody, he escaped from jail and hid in the home of Ray’s mother, who he beat with a hammer.

Swingle did not mince words when he contrasted Bucklew’s execution with his crimes.

“Michael Sanders was on the ground begging for his life as Bucklew stood over him. You couldn’t have a bigger difference between that and the peaceful death he went through tonight,” he said.

Bucklew had been set for execution before, but because of a rare medical condition, cavernous hemangioma, his case bounced from court to court, ultimately landing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, which stayed the execution twice before but ruled in April that Bucklew could be put to death. His attorneys had argued execution would be unconstitutional because of the blood-filled tumors in his head, neck and throat.

Swingle dismissed the concerns, saying Bucklew did not die a gruesome death as some had suggested. He added the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment does not require a painless death.

“But it turned out to not be a painful death,” he said. “As I watched it, I was thinking this was the final chapter in a saga that lasted 23 years.”

Recently, Catholic bishops across the state and the American Civil Liberties Union lobbied on behalf of leniency for Bucklew. Gov. Mike Parson announced Tuesday morning he would not stop the execution.

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Russell Bucklew timeline

• April 1997: A Boone County, Missouri, jury, on a change of venue, convicted Russell Bucklew of rape, kidnapping, murder, burglary and armed criminal action. He was found guilty of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Pruitt Ray, at gunpoint minutes after he shot and killed Michael H. Sanders, Ray’s new boyfriend, in March 1996 in Cape Girardeau County.
• May 1997: Sentenced to death
• 1998: Missouri Supreme Court upholds Bucklew’s conviction and death sentence, but execution stayed while he sought review in state and federal courts.
• May 2014: The U.S. Supreme Court halted his execution within hours of the scheduled time and sent the case back to a lower federal court amid concerns about Bucklew’s medical condition. The condition, cavernous hemangioma, causes blood-filled tumors to grow in his head, neck and throat.
• 2015: Attorneys for Bucklew suggest a firing squad would be a better method of carrying out the death sentence.
• March 2018: U.S. Supreme Court grants second stay of execution just before lethal injection was set to begin.
• April 2019: The U.S. Supreme Court rules the state could move ahead with the execution. The decision came on a 5-4 vote, with the court’s five conservative justices rejecting Bucklew’s argument subjecting him to lethal injection would violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment “does not guarantee a painless death.”
• February 2019: Zach Sanders wants Bucklew, his father’s killer, and other Missouri death-row inmates to be allowed to donate organs for transplant and/or their bodies for science
• June 2019: Missouri Supreme Court sets Oct. 1 execution date
• September 2019: Missouri’s Catholic bishops and the American Civil Liberties Union ask Gov. Mike Parson to halt the scheduled execution and reduce Bucklew’s sentence to life in prison. Attorneys for Bucklew say the tracheostomy tube he relies on to breathe increases the risk of a “grotesque execution process” if he is put to death.
• Oct. 1: Bucklew executed, more than 23 years after he committed the murder.