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June 22, 2023Potosi, Mo. |  By: AP

43-year-old Missouri inmate dies awaiting execution for elderly couple’s murder

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POTOSI, Mo. (AP) — A 43-year-old death row inmate in Missouri has died awaiting execution for murdering an elderly couple who caught him breaking into their home, prison officials said Wednesday.

Jesse Driskill died June 12 at a prison in Potosi. The cause of death was not known and an autopsy is planned, said Missouri Department of Corrections spokesperson Karen Pojmann.

Driskill, from the town of Lebanon in southern Missouri, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 82-year-old Johnnie Wilson and his 76-year-old wife Coleen. Driskill was also convicted of sexually assaulting Coleen.

The couple had just celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary when they interrupted Driskill burglarizing their home in Lebanon in 2010.

He appealed the convictions, claiming his lawyers were ineffective. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld his convictions in 2021.

No execution date had been set for Driskill. Missouri has executed three people so far this year: Amber McLaughlin in January, Raheem Taylor in February and Michael Tisius on June 6. Another inmate, Johnny Johnson, is scheduled to die Aug. 1 for killing a 6-year-old St. Louis County girl in 2002.