BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) - A Missouri inmate has been executed for beating a 63-year-old woman to death with a hammer in 1998.
Paul Goodwin was put to death early Wednesday, the 10th man executed in Missouri in 2014. That breaks the state's previous high of nine executions in 1999 and matches Texas for the most in the U.S. this year.
Goodwin sexually assaulted Joan Crotts in St. Louis County, pushed her down a flight of stairs and beat her in the head with a hammer. Goodwin was a former neighbor who felt Crotts played a role in getting him kicked out of a boarding house.
Efforts to spare Goodwin's life centered on his low IQ and claims that executing him would violate a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the death penalty for the mentally disabled.
© Associated Press
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