A man convicted of raping and murdering a Sioux Falls girl is one day away from death. Donald Moeller waits in a holding cell at the State Penitentiary ahead of his lethal injection by pentobarbital. The state's attorney general wants the public to remember more than Moeller’s death.
As Donald Moeller faces his last day alive, stories swirl about his capital punishment case and his crime. South Dakota’s Attorney General Marty Jackley says it’s easy to focus on Moeller, especially after two decades of news related to appeals and court appearances. Jackley wants people to focus on someone else ahead of Moeller’s execution: his victim.
"I hope one of the biggest things that the public recognizes is what happened to a nine-year-old little Becky O’Connell, that there’s often times a focus on the defendant and how important it is that the process be a humane treatment of the defendant, but likewise I hope that there’s a focus on Becky O’Connell," Jackley says.
Jackley says he knows O’Connell’s mom, Tina Curl, plans to attend the execution of her daughter’s murderer.
The lethal injection is set for 10 p.m. Tuesday.
