An execution date has been set for Carman L. Deck, who killed a De Soto-area couple in 1996.
Deck, 56, of St. Louis County is to be executed on May 3, the Missouri Supreme Court announced.
After he was convicted of the execution-style murders of James Long, 69, and Zelma Long, 67, during a robbery at the couple’s home in the De Soto area, he was sentenced to death three times only to have those sentences overturned.
“It has been a long time coming over the 25 years,” said Laura Friedman, 58, of Dallas, the youngest of Bill and Zelma Long’s seven children. “What is most important is going back to my parents and thinking about them. I miss them every single day. They were incredible people. Their lives were taken way too soon, and it shouldn’t have happened.
“Over 25 years, I have had to put my faith in God and the judicial system and hope the outcome would be the right outcome and justice would be served the way it should be. I believe that has happened now.”
Karen Long, who is married to Bill and Zelma Long’s son, William Long, also said justice has been slow to come.
“The thing that everyone in the family keeps saying is finally justice for Jim and Zelma may finally be coming May 3,” said Karen Long, who lives in Lake of the Ozarks. “It was just so senseless that they were killed for a tin of coins that was used to play poker.”
Deck originally was convicted in February 1998 of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. That sentence was reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court in 2002 due to errors Deck’s lawyers made.
Deck then received a second death penalty, which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned in May 2005.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Gary Kramer sentenced Deck to death for a third time in November 2008, after a jury recommended the sentence following a penalty-phase retrial.
Then in April 2017, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry vacated Deck’s death sentence, saying delays in Deck’s appeals cases over the years influenced her ruling and blaming the state’s attorneys rather than Deck’s for slowing the proceedings.
“While the passage of time does not and cannot lessen the loss and grief suffered by the victims’ family, it nevertheless affected the fairness of the process in this case and the factfinder’s ability to render a just penalty,” Perry said in her ruling. “Deck was deprived of a constitutionally fair penalty trial, the result of which cannot stand.”
However, an appeals court overturned Perry’s ruling in fall 2020, and the state filed a motion in October to set Deck’s execution date.
Court records said Deck and his sister, Tonia Cummings, went to the Long home in July 1996 to rob them.
Zelma Long answered the door, and Deck asked for directions. She invited them into the house, and as she gave directions and her husband wrote them down, Deck pulled a pistol from his waistband and ordered them to lie face down on their bed. He shot each of them in the head.
“We will never forget those horrific minutes after we learned of their murders,” Karen Long said. “I can’t tell you how many times we have thought about what Jim and Zelma were thinking those last few seconds before four shots were fired into the backs of their heads.”
Friedman said she wants to attend Deck’s execution, but she is not sure if she will be allowed to.
“I don’t like necessarily the thought of someone being put to death, but I think what has made me strong enough to do this is knowing what my parents went through. This is nothing compared to that,” she said.
Karen Long said she also would like to attend the execution, but she is not sure she will be able to because of her husband’s health. “I have spoken to a couple of family members who want to attend (the execution),” she said.
Cummings, 53, also of St. Louis County, was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder in 1998 in the case and sentenced to 70 years in prison. She is serving her sentence at the Chillicothe Correctional Center.