Seventeen years ago, Skip White, owner and director of White’s Funeral Home and Crematory in Cassville, promised lifeless 9-year-old Rowan Ford that he would watch her killer’s execution.
On Dec. 3, he followed through. White, along with nine other spectators, was in the theater of the execution chamber at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, in Bonne Terre, when the curtains were pulled back so the audience could watch 49-year-old Chris Collings, of Wheaton, receive a single lethal injection of pentobarbital.
“Chris had a lot easier way out than Rowan did,” said White, who was serving as the Barry County coroner when, Rowan Ford, Tri-Way Elementary fourth grader, went missing from her Newton County home in Stella on Nov. 3, 2007.
Ford’s body was recovered six days later from a cave at the bottom of a sinkhole in a remote area of McDonald County, where Collings — a family friend — confessed to dumping it after kidnapping, raping and strangling her.
Collings and Rowan Ford’s step-father, David Spears, of Stella, both confessed to the crime.
Because the rape and murder occurred in Barry County, White, in his capacity as Barry County coroner, was called to transport Ford’s body for an autopsy.
Although it took several days for lab results to come back, White says Ford’s obvious injuries spoke of the horrendous nature of the crime.
Barry and Newton County law enforcement personnel called Ford’s death one of the worst crimes they’d ever investigated.
Jurors, at the closing of Collings’ March 2012 trial, pronounced Collings “guilty,” describing his action toward Ford as “outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman, in that it involved torture or depravity of mind.”
Collings was sentenced to the death penalty, an eye-for-eye justice delayed for 17 years.
While he was handed a death penalty in 2012, murder charges against David Spears, his friend and co-confessor, were dropped in October of that same year. Instead, Spears accepted the terms of a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to lesser charges of “endangering the welfare of a child” and “hindering prosecution,” Class C and Class D Felonies, respectively. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison – four of which he had already served – and was released in 2015.
Spears now works for the Missouri State Public Defender’s office in West Plains for the husband of attorney Sharon Turlington, the public defender who served as Spears’ legal counsel. According to Missouri Employees Accountability Portal, in 2023, Spears drew a public salary of $38,999.50.
Skip White, who has a soft spot for children, including his own four granddaughters and one great-grandson, is livid.
“What kind of system are we operating in that our tax money is going to this [man]?” White said. “In many ways, he was as guilty as Chris Collings. I’m appalled that they gave him a deal. I know what the state attorney general’s office is going to say: ‘We make deals every day.’ But I don’t think they have 9-year-old girls killed every day.”
Johnnie Cox, current 39th Judicial District associate judge, was serving as Barry County’s prosecuting attorney when Rowan Ford was murdered in November 2007. As prosecutor, he was charged with pursuing justice on behalf of Ford and her family.
Inconsistencies in the confessions of Collings and Spears could have created an argument for overturning Collings’ murder conviction, Cox stated in a 2012 press release, published in an Oct. 3, 2012, article in the Cassville Democrat, written by then-editor, Lisa Schlichtman.
While David Spears confessed to the rape and murder, Collings, in his confession, insisted that Spears was not involved.
No physical evidence could be found to support Spears’ confession, Cox said.
“[An overturning of Collings’ murder conviction] would be unacceptable to the state,” Cox said, at the time.
In deciding not to pursue a murder conviction for Spears, Cox said he realized the general public was convinced of Spears’ guilt and was outraged at the vicious crime against a child.
“This type of crime should outrage everyone,” Cox said in his 2012 press release. “I was outraged when I first heard about it. However, as a prosecutor, I am a minister of justice and must do what the law requires, what the facts require and what fairness and justice require. A prosecutor’s duty is not to just seek convictions or win cases, but to see that justice is done.”
Cox said then that he didn’t know why Spears told law enforcement he was involved in Rowan’s murder, when evidence, including Collings’ confession, indicated that he wasn’t involved.
Skip White believes everyone let Ford down.
“There were plenty of red flags where Rowan was concerned,” White said. “She showed up early for school and church, too early to even get in. That should have been a sign something was wrong. All of us in today’s world, we need to care more about each other. We dropped the ball with Rowan.”
Ford would be 26-yearsold today.
In 2012, Cox said he believed Rowan received the justice she deserved.
Collings was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. on Dec. 3 in the execution chamber at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre.
“From the time of the lethal injection, it took about seven minutes for him to die,” White said.
White’s attention is now turned to Collings’ co-confessor to murder, Spears.
“How did he get a job with the public defender’s office, and why is he now working on the taxpayer’s dime? he said.
