Carman Deck, convicted in 1998 of the 1996 murders of James and Zelma Long of the De Soto area, was put to death Tuesday evening, May 3, at the state prison in Bonne Terre after the case spent years twisting and turning in the courts system.
Deck, 56, was executed through lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correction Center in Bonne Terre, according to published reports. The execution was only the fifth this year in the nation, the reports said.
Laura Friedman, youngest of the Longs’ seven children, said her parents – and Deck – have finally received justice. Friedman, 58, who lives in Dallas, said she was among 14 Long family members to attend the execution, the maximum number allowed.
“We’re glad it’s over, after people questioned the justice behind it, the protestors,” Friedman said. “But, we feel justice was served for Carman Deck.”
She said the execution brought some form of closure for the entire family.
“I trusted in the system,” Friedman said. “I truly believe it took longer than it should have, but in the end, I believe in the system.”
Deck’s attorney, Elizabeth Carlyle, said in a written statement that Deck’s execution was “unjust and immoral.” She cited psychologist’s assessment that Deck “had no childhood” and “endured a pattern of abuse, neglect and abandonment,” which she said was mitigating evidence the Missouri Supreme Court described as “substantial.”
“His mother and stepmother taught Carman to steal, which led to his first imprisonment at age 19,” Carlyle said. “While in prison, he was brutally raped. This experience transformed him from a nonviolent thief into the person who committed two terrible murders.
“Life imprisonment without parole would have been a just and adequate punishment for him.”
According to accounts published in the Leader, Deck of St. Louis County was convicted in February 1998 of two counts of first-degree murder and given two death sentences for the July 8, 1996, execution-style murders of James Long, 69, and Zelma Long, 67, during a robbery at the couple’s home in the De Soto area.
The Missouri Supreme Court reversed that decision in 2002, citing errors Deck’s lawyers made. Deck then received a second death sentence, 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 death penalty following a penalty-phase retrial.
U.S. District Judge Catherine D. Perry’s 2017 decision was the most recent to set aside Deck’s death sentence, but that ruling was overturned by the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 19, 2020, reversing the lower court’s ruling and reinstating Deck’s death penalty.
Court records show that Deck’s sister, Tonia Cummings, went with him to the Long home to rob them. Cummings, 53, also of St. Louis County, was convicted in 1998 of two counts of second-degree murder for her part in the crimes and sentenced to 70 years in prison. She is serving her sentence at the Chillicothe Correctional Center.
--For more on this story, see the May 12 edition of the Leader.