A man on Missouri’s death row who killed his cousin and her husband 18 years ago was executed on Tuesday.
Brian Dorsey, 52, apologized to his family for his crimes just before he was put to death, the New York Post reported.
“To all of the family and loved ones I share with Sarah and to all of the surviving family and loved ones of Ben, I am totally, deeply, overwhelmingly sorry,” he wrote, according to the outlet. “Words cannot hold the just weight of my guilt and shame. I still love you. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I am sorry I hurt them and you.”
Dorsey was sentenced to lethal injection in 2006 after he was convicted of murdering his cousin, Sarah, and her husband, Ben Bonnie, just before Christmas. The killings left the couple’s four-year-old daughter without parents.
Dorsey had asked the Bonnies for money after claiming two drug dealers were demanding he pay his debts, NBC News reported. The couple brought Dorsey back to their home on December 23, 2006, to let him stay over, but he grabbed their shotgun and killed them both.
Their young daughter was home but wasn’t harmed.
Dorsey pleaded guilty to the murders but a jury was brought in for sentencing, resulting in the death penalty. The jury found seven aggravating factors that led to its recommendation of death, including the fact that Dorsey sexually assaulted Sarah’s body after shooting her. After the murders, Dorsey stole several items from the home to pay off his drug debt, the Post reported.
Sometime later, Sarah’s parents stopped by the home to check on the couple, who had only been married for one year. In the home, they found the couple’s little girl sitting on the couch watching TV. She told her grandparents that her mother “won’t wake up.”
Dorsey turned himself in three days after the murders.
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Dorsey previously apologized for his crimes, NBC reported, saying he had been in a drug-induced psychosis at the time. He appealed his sentence but was denied two appeals by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prison officials also wrote to Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, to spare Dorsey’s life, calling him a “model inmate” and explaining how he cut the warden’s hair after being allowed to work as a barber. Parson denied the request.
The Missouri Department of Corrections told Fox News that Dorsey died quickly after he was lethally injected. He was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. on April 9, 2024.