Convicted murderer Russell Bucklew scheduled for May 21 execution

A Cape Girardeau man convicted of the 1996 murder of Michael Sanders finally has an execution date, the Missouri Supreme Court announced Wednesday.

Russell Bucklew, 45, is set to be put to death May 21, exactly 18 years and two months after Sanders' death.

In 1997, a jury in Boone County, Mo., convicted Bucklew of first-degree murder, kidnapping, first-degree burglary, rape and armed criminal action, online court records show.

Russell Bucklew

Then-Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said Wednesday he was "delighted" to hear the sentence finally would be carried out.

"I've always said that Russell Bucklew was the most evil person I've ever prosecuted," Swingle said in a telephone interview from Colorado, where he now works as a defense attorney.

Stephanie Ray Pruitt shows police a cut on her face inflicted by Russell Bucklew. (Submitted photo)

About two weeks before the murder, Bucklew tied his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Pruitt, to a bed and put a knife to her throat, Swingle said.

"She had only gotten away because she told him she would get back together with him, so he let her go, and she went to the police, and we had charges filed against him," Swingle said.

After the charges were filed, Bucklew "just disappeared off the face of the earth," Swingle said.

Pruitt and her daughters went to stay with Sanders -- whom she knew from work -- and his two young sons in Cape Girardeau County, Swingle said.

Russell Bucklew

"They were living in a mobile home with the four little children while she was hiding from Russell Bucklew," he said.

Bucklew had been living with his brother, a police officer in Jefferson City, Mo., Swingle said.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle on April 3, 1997, displays to a jury the shotgun that was used by Michael L. Sanders, 27, to try to defend himself when Russell E. Bucklew, 28, shot and killed Sanders in Sanders' home March 21, 1996. (Don Shrubshell ~ Southeast Missourian file)

Bucklew stole a car, guns, knives and handcuffs from his brother and drove to Pruitt's workplace on payday, Swingle said.

"He lay in wait on the day he knew she'd be picking up her paycheck" and followed her home, he said.

When Sanders saw Bucklew at the door, he ran to get a shotgun he had borrowed to protect his family, but Bucklew -- armed with a gun in each hand -- shot Sanders first, Swingle said.

"All the children were right there," he said. " ... Then he took Stephanie and pistol-whipped her and handcuffed her and dragged her outside to his car."

A neighbor saw him and called police, who issued a bulletin to law enforcement agencies across the area, Swingle said.

Bucklew drove Pruitt to a secluded spot, raped her, and then drove to St. Louis with his car stereo blasting the Bon Jovi song "Blaze of Glory" on the way, Swingle said.

"He told her that he was going to go down in a blaze of glory in a shootout with police," he said.

A state trooper spotted the car on Interstate 55 and called for backup. Officers eventually set up a rolling roadblock, with eight cars surrounding Bucklew's vehicle, Swingle said.

"They slowed and slowed and slowed until he was trapped between them and had to come to a stop," he said.

Bucklew, again armed with two guns, pointed one at the trooper who had initiated the chase and one at Pruitt, Swingle said.

He fired at the trooper, missed, and the trooper shot back. The bullet passed through the windshield, striking Bucklew in the forehead but slowing down enough that it didn't penetrate his skull, Swingle said.

After undergoing treatment at a St. Louis hospital, Bucklew was transported to the Cape Girardeau County Jail, where he called Pruitt's mother and said, "You're next," Swingle said.

"She said, 'You're in jail. You can't hurt me. I'm going to watch you fry when you get the death penalty,'" Swingle said.

Bucklew later escaped from jail in a trash bag, and Pruitt's mother moved into a motel to avoid him, Swingle said.

Whenever Pruitt's mother returned to her home to retrieve clothing, police officers went in before her to make sure the house was safe, but on one trip, Bucklew hid in a pantry, waited for them to leave, and then attacked her with a hammer, Swingle said.

"In my closing arguments, I referred to him as a homicidal Energizer bunny, because you could shoot him, jail him, and if he hates you and wants to hurt you, he'll just keep coming after you," he said.

Pruitt's mother escaped, and Bucklew fled from police, but a sheriff's deputy eventually caught up to him, Swingle said.

Bucklew heard the deputy cock his shotgun and "decided he did not want to go down in a blaze of glory after all," Swingle said.

When Bucklew is executed, Pruitt will not be there to see it.

"She intended to be there when it happened," Swingle said. "Stephanie Pruitt married a man after this happened, and a couple of years ago, in Perry County, her new husband murdered her in a murder-suicide."

Bucklew's execution has been delayed several times, partly by appeals and partly by lack of access to the drugs historically used for lethal injections and constitutional questions about replacement drugs.

"If the execution is carried out on May 21, the world will be a bit safer place on May 22," Swingle said.

epriddy@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

Cape Girardeau, Mo.