Missouri prepares to execute Poplar Bluff killer in Potosi

POTOSI, Mo. -- A man sentenced to death in the 1984 killing of a tavern patron during a one-night rampage spent Tuesday hoping 11th-hour appeals to federal courts and Missouri's governor would spare his life.

Scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. today, Kenneth Kenley, 42, sought to stave off lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center.

Kenley's attorneys, unsuccessful Monday with appeals to the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, quickly took the matter to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals there, with plans to seek last-minute relief from the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

The nation's high court twice had declined appeals by Kenley, who would become the first Missouri inmate executed this year and the 60th since the state's 1989 reinstatement of the death penalty.

Kenley's backers argued that their client be spared on grounds that prison officials were "cruel and unusual" in failing to treat a liver-attacking disease Kenley contracted behind bars. That appeal also claimed Kenley too mentally unfit to be executed.

In a clemency petition to Gov. Bob Holden, Kenley's attorneys argue the competency-for-execution issue, among a host of other challenges.

Kenley declined interview requests.

During a brief telephone talk Tuesday with her client, Kenley attorney Jennifer Brewer said the inmate -- in a holding cell near the state's execution chamber -- appeared "just edgy, what you would expect" for someone within hours of possible death.

'Guilty as sin'

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon called Kenley "a heartless, cold-blooded killer" whose claims of coming from an abusive household begged the question: So what?

"There are thousands of Missourians living normal lives who have had troubled upbringings, and nothing is an adequate excuse for the violent murders and assaults that litter this guy's biography," Nixon said. "He doesn't have any good arguments because he's guilty as sin."

Kenley was convicted and ordered to die in the January 1984 killing of Ronald Felts. Kenley shot Felts in the head during a holdup of a rural Poplar Bluff tavern where Felts, 27, was playing pool with friends.

Earlier that night, Kenley robbed a liquor store in the Southeast Missouri town, then fled with cash and a hostage he shot in the back as she jumped from their moving car. When he later stormed the Blue Moon Tavern and ordered occupants to hit the floor, Kenley said, "I mean business. I'll kill you just like I'm going to kill him," then shot Felts dead with his .38-caliber pistol.

Kenley wounded the bartender in the jaw and put his pistol to a teenager's forehead. When he tried to shoot an abducted woman as she fled, his pistol wouldn't fire. During a motel holdup, Kenley aimed at the owner but fled when he resisted -- and after his gun again failed.

Kenley exchanged gunfire with police in Arkansas and eventually surrendered, telling officers who arrested him, "You all were lucky."

Behind bars, Kenley has been less than a model prisoner, logging 61 conduct violations that included eight assaults, state Department of Corrections spokesman Tim Kniest said.