Facts of the Case
At the age of 17, Christopher Simmons murdered Shirley Crook in the state of Missouri in 1933. Simmons was sentenced to death after it was found that he had concocted a plan to break into the home of Crook, tie her up, and toss her off of a bridge with two other friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer. In the middle of the night at about 2 a.m., Benjamin and Simmons broke into the victims home through an open window and carried out the crime as planned without Tessmer, who dropped out of the plan. Simmons had no criminal history but because of the overwhelming evidence, a testimony from his younger friend Tessmer, Simmons confession to the murder, and videotaped reenactment at the crime the court considered the murder…