Murderer of 11-year-old school girl becomes first executed in Missouri in 21 months

Murderer who kidnapped, raped and strangled girl, 11, on her way to school dies by lethal injection

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 10:21 EST, 9 February 2011

• No family or friends come to see him die

A murderer who showed no remorse for kidnapping, raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl on her way to school was executed today.

With no family, friends or clergy to watch him die, Martin Link, 47, was given a lethal injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri, at 12.15am (0615 GMT).

He coughed four times as the anaesthetic was administered before the next two drugs entered his body and killed him. During that time he never opened his eyes or moved.

Martin Link, left, murdered 11-year-old Elissa Self-Braun as she made her way to the school bus stop one January morning

He used his final words to criticise the death penalty.

'The state says killing is wrong,' Link wrote in a statement before the execution. 'So why do they do it? For revenge. Where is the closure? There is none.'

His fate was sealed on Monday when Governor Jay Nixon denied clemency and the courts refused to halt the execution. He became the first person on Death Row to be killed in 21 months in Missouri - and only the second since 2006.

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Elissa Self-Braun, disappeared on January 11, 1991, while walking to her school bus stop.

Her body was found four days later along the St Francis River, 135 miles south of St Louis. She had been raped.

DNA evidence connected Link to the crime and he was found guilty of kidnapping, raping and strangling.

Link was executed with an injection of sodium thiopental, a drug formerly made by Hospira, Inc., the only U.S. company that manufactured it

Link was executed with an injection of sodium thiopental, a drug formerly made by Hospira, Inc., the only U.S. company that manufactured it.

The company said recently that it will no longer make the drug because it does not want it to be used in executions.

Elissa's mother, Pamela Braun, was among several of the girl's relatives who witnessed the execution.

She thanked police, prosecutors, even lab workers, for bringing Link to justice.

Gary Morton, the victim's half brother, told Missourinet.com that the murder 'devastated our family'.

He continued: 'It was a cold, snowy day and we got a phone call from the school that she wasn’t there and we started our search because that was so unlike Elissa.

'We searched the neighbourhood and put up fliers, then we got a phone call four days later that she had been found in South Missouri.'

Elissa's sister Lily, who was only four at the time of the killing - also speaking to Missourinet.com - said: 'I remember her coming in to my bedroom a lot and she would always read to me or help me brush my hair and make sure I was tucked in.

'Lissy was very much the one to be the caretaker of me and Jake, my younger brother.

'I’d like to see her living again, see her in action, see her face to face, because it’s very hard to remember that when all you’re remembering and talking about is her death.

'Probably in the next few days we’ll try to all get together and relive Elissa being alive again.'

Missouri's last execution was in 2009, and another man, Richard Clay, had been scheduled to die earlier this year.

His sentence was commuted to life in prison at the last minute by Mr Nixon.

The execution of Link was the fifth this year in the United States.

There were 46 executions in the United States during 2010, down 12 per cent from 2009. Since 1989, Missouri has executed 67 men.

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