Dennis Skillicorn

Nicklasson was executed for his role in the crime on December 11, 2013. He made no final statement, and spent the last twenty minutes of his life praying with the prison chaplain. Neither his family members nor those of the victim attended the execution. DeGraffenreid, who pleaded guilty to the murder charges, was given a life term which he is serving in another state.

Over the years, despite protests from anti-death penalty activists due to his good conduct and attempts on Nicklasson's part to have his sentence overturned, all of Skillicorn's appeals were denied. On May 20, 2009, he was executed via lethal injection at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre. He was the first person to be executed in the state following a three-year moratorium on executions.

Near the end of the trial, prosecutors presented an audiotape containing oral confessions from Skillicorn detailing all of their crimes, including a supposed additional murder of a restaurant employee in Tecate, Mexico that was never verified. In the end, he was found guilty on all counts, with the jury recommending a death sentence. In March 1996, Skillicorn was officially sentenced to death. He would later be convicted of the Babcocks' murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Along the way, their car broke down near Kingdom City, and after having trouble starting it for a day, they then broke into a nearby house to steal money and guns. They then paid to have the car fixed, but it had too many issues and eventually broke down again near Kingdom City on August 24. While they were attempting to fix it, the trio were approached by 47-year-old Richard Drummond, a supervisor for AT&T from Excelsior Springs who offered to help them out. Nicklasson then held him at gunpoint and ordered him to go into the car, where the three men drove away in his 1994 Dodge Intrepid. Along the way, Skillicorn and Nicklasson decided to get rid of Drummond, driving to a field near Higginsville, where Nicklasson shot Drummond in the back of the head. The trio then attended a party in Blue Springs, and after that, DeGraffenreid left them and went into hiding, while Skillicorn and Nicklasson pressed on.

After serving 13 years and a half of his sentence, Skillicorn was paroled in November 1992 and returned to live in Kansas City, but was required to enroll himself into a drug rehabilitation center ran by The Salvation Army. During his time there, he befriended a man named Allen L. Nicklasson, a 22-year-old violent felon and fellow drug addict. In late August 1994, the pair, accompanied by 17-year-old Tim DeGraffenreid, decided to go buy drugs together after leaving the rehabilitation center and got in DeGraffenreid's 1983 Chevrolet Caprice, whereupon they headed towards St. Louis.

From there, the pair drove southwest, finding themselves in Kingman, Arizona two days later. After getting their car stuck, Skillicorn and Nicklasson knocked on the door of the nearest house, occupied by Joseph and Charlene Babcock. Explaining their situation, Joseph agreed to help them and drove the two men back to their car in his own 1989 Dodge Ramcharger. Once they arrived, he was shot dead, but as they were unwilling to leave any potential witnesses, Skillicorn and Nicklasson got into Joseph's car and drove back to his house, burst inside, and knocked Charlene to the ground. They then shot her in the head, ransacked a nearby house for ammunition, and fled in the Babcocks' car. Later in the evening, a man resembling Skillicorn attempted to snatch a woman's purse in Huntington Beach, California, and when confronted by her and another passer-by, he opened fire on them. The victims were unharmed, but the assailant jumped into his car – a Ramcharger with Arizona license plates – and sped away from the scene.

On December 2, 1979, the 20-year-old Skillicorn accompanied two other men – 28-year-old James K. Betts and 21-year-old Elias Frank Brooks Jr. – on an out-of-town trip to buy drugs. In desperate need of cash, they decided to rob somebody, setting their sights on a rural farmhouse in Levasy. The trio broke in and forced the occupant, 81-year-old Wendell Howell, to stay on the couch while Brooks and Skillicorn stole his TV set. When they did so, Betts proceeded to shoot him in the back of the head with a sawed-off shotgun.

Dennis James Skillicorn (November 21, 1959 – May 20, 2009) was an American criminal and murderer. Originally sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for a 1979 second-degree murder charge, he was later paroled and, with the help of two accomplices, embarked on a crime spree that resulted in the deaths of at least four more people. Convicted and sentenced to death for one of these murders, he and one of his accomplices were executed in 2009 and 2013, respectively.