William Ira Purkey Archives

A December execution date has been scheduled at the federal level for a man convicted of the killing of a Kansas City teenager more than 21 years ago.

Attorney General William Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to schedule William Ira Purkey’s execution, along with four other inmates in unrelated cases.

“Under Administration of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding,” Barr’s statement reads, in part.

Federal prosecutors say Purkey raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl who was walking home from East High School in 1998.

The “Kansas City Star” reports Jennifer Long was raped, before she tried to escape. The newspaper says Long was stabbed repeatedly and that Purkey used an electric chainsaw to cut her body up. Her remains were burned inside a fireplace and dumped into a septic bond 200 miles away, near Wichita.

Federal prosecutors also say Purkey was convicted in Kansas of killing an elderly woman there. He used a claw hammer to bludgeon the 80-year-old woman to death. Prosecutors say she suffered from polio and walked with a cane.

Purkey is scheduled to be executed on December 13 at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in Washington tells Missourinet that Purkey is currently incarcerated in Terre Haute.

He’ll be executed by lethal injection.

The Justice Department says Purkey has exhausted his appeals.