Christopher Collings was executed in 2007 for the rape and murder of Rowan Ford

A Missouri inmate was executed Tuesday for the 2007 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl who knew him as “Uncle Chris” – with the killer telling observers he hoped to see her “in heaven someday.” .

Christopher Collings, 49, was pronounced dead nine minutes after being injected with a single dose of pentobarbital at a state prison in Bonne Terre – the 23rd execution in the US this year.

The father of two was found guilty of murdering little Rowan Ford, who was sexually abused, strangled and dumped in a hole in the ground in a small Missouri town.

“Right or wrong, I accept this situation as it is,” Collings said in a written closing statement.

“To everyone I have hurt in this life, I am sorry. I hope you can find closure and move on.

“I hope to see you in heaven one day,” he added.

His last meal was a bacon cheeseburger, breaded mushrooms, tater tots and a chef’s salad, the Kansas City Star reported.

Collings was friends with Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, and lived in the same house as them and Rowan’s mother, Colleen Munson, for several months in 2007.

One night, after drinking heavily and smoking marijuana with Spears and another man, Collings lifted the child from his bed while he was sleeping and took him to his RV, court records show.

He raped her and after she saw Collings’ face as he carried her home, he confessed that he “freaked out” and strangled her with a wire.

He then stuck her body in a hole in the ground and burned the wire he used, the clothes he was wearing and a bloodstained mattress, prosecutors said.

When mother Munson returned home from work on the morning of November 3rd, she was told by Spears that Rowan was at a friend’s house. When she never came home, police launched a massive manhunt for her.

Spears also implicated himself in the crime, claiming that Collings gave him a cord and that he killed Rowan, according to court documents cited in a clemency petition for Collings.

In the end, Spears pleaded to a lesser charge and served more than seven years in prison.

Final appeals on Collings’ behalf to Missouri Governor Mike Parson and the U.S. Supreme Court failed.

“Mr. Collings has received all the protections afforded by the Constitutions of Missouri and the United States, and Mr. Collings’ conviction and sentence for his terrible and cruel crime remains,” Parson said in a statement.

According to teachers who testified at her trial, Rowan was remembered as a happy student who loved Barbie and painted her room pink.

“I am so proud of the girl she has become,” her older sister Ariane Macks told USA Today.

“A part of me died when my sister died. I lost my ray of sunshine… She was very shy, but when she opened up it was like the whole room lit up. Rowan, she was very special.”

With post wires