Stephen Johns was executed by the State of Missouri for the murder of Donald Voepel
According to court documents Stephen Jones would rob a gas station and in the process shot and killed seventeen year old Donald Voepel
Stephen Johns would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Stephen Johns would be executed by lethal injection on October 24 2001
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When Was Stephen Johns Executed
Stephen Johns was executed on October 24 2001
Stephen Johns Case
On the evening of February 18, 1982, an Onyx Gas Station in the City of St. Louis was robbed of approximately $248. A customer who stopped at the station shortly before 8 p.m. discovered the body of the seventeen year old attendant, Donald Voepel, lying face down in a storage room with bullet wounds in the back of his head. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy testified that she found three bullet holes-all within one inch of each other- behind the victim’s right ear. One of the bullets had been fired from a distance of less than six inches from the victims head. The autopsy also revealed a bruise on top of the victims head. During the weeks preceeding the murder, Johns had discussed his plan for robbing the Onyx station with Linda Klund and David Smith, two acquaintances. Klund drove Johns and a second man, Robert Shawn Wishon, to the station. She parked the car a short distance from the station and waited while Johns and Wishon went in. When they returned, she followed an escape route planned earlier by Johns. After disposing of the money bag, Klund dropped off Wishon and then Johns. Johns gave her $50 and asked her to take a bag containing the gun and bullets so he would not have it in case he was picked up. Johns was arrested on February 19. He was convicted of capital murder in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis and the jury imposed the death sentence.
Last Statement of Stephen K. Johns:
Missouri and its agents have killed innocent men in the past. I guess they think it’s just part of doing business. I have, over the past many years, heard many ‘last words’ of those killed by the State and it’s citizens. They range from “I’m sorry” to “kiss my fat ass.” If the State and its citizens kill me, I would say that I do not forgive those whose lies led to my conviction. I do not forgive the jurists who exercised their considerable intellect to deny me justified legal redress. I do not forgive those State functionaries, who act as ‘good Germans’ to kill me. I am innocent, but was not given the tools at trial, or on appeal, to make my innocence into a legal reality. /s/ Stephen K. Johns
http://learfield.typepad.com/deathrow/execution_johns.html
