George C. "Tiny" Mercer (August 31, 1944 – January 6, 1989) was convicted of the rape and murder of 22 year old Karen Keeton in Belton, Missouri

Belton, Missouri

Belton is a city in Cass County, Missouri, and part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 21,730.-Geography:Belton is at ....

, United States, on August 31, 1978. At the time of the murder, Mercer had a charge pending against him of raping a 17 year old girl. He was executed at the age of 44 by the state of Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 by lethal injection

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...

. He became the first person to be executed in Missouri since 1965.

See also

• List of individuals executed in Missouri
• Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States
  Capital punishment in the United States, in practice, applies only for aggravated murder and more rarely for felony murder. Capital punishment was a penalty at common law, for many felonies, and was enforced in all of the American colonies prior to the Declaration of Independence...
  
  

Sources

• Death Row - Capital Punishment in Missouri - Executions: 1989-2005. The Missourinet. Retrieved on 2007-11-18.
• State of Missouri v. George C. Mercer, 618 S.W. 2d 1 (Mo.banc.1981). The Missourinet. Retrieved on 2007-11-18.
• U.S. Executions Since 1976. The Clark County Prosecuting Attorney. Retrieved on 2007-11-18.