Federal government executes Missouri man who raped, murdered 10-year-old girl

The federal government on Friday put to death 45-year-old Keith Dwayne Nelson, a Missouri man who in 2001 was found guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering 10-year-old Pamela Butler. 

The Department of Justice said in a press release on Friday that Nelson "was executed at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute" pursuant to a capital sentence imposed in 2002 after he was found guilty. 

Nelson in 2001 plead guilty to having planned and carried out the crime against Butler in Kansas City, Missouri in 1999, DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in the press release. His "claims for collateral relief were denied by every court that considered them," she added. 

Butler's family members "attended the execution and witnessed implementation of the sentence for Nelson’s horrific crime," Kupec said. 

Nelson was the fifth inmate executed by the federal government in 2020. Federal executions resumed in July of this year after a 17-year hiatus that began in 2003.