05 October 2015 :

Gov. Jay Nixon commuted the death sentence of Kimber Edwards to life without parole.
Edwards, 51, Black, was scheduled for execution on Oct. 6.
Edwards was convicted of hiring Orthell Wilson to kill his ex-wife, Kimberly Cantrell, on Aug. 22, 2000. Edwards was sentenced to death on June 27, 2002.
Edwards, supposedly, had her killed so he would no longer have to pay child support.
He had told the courts he was framed. Wilson committed the murder and testified against Edwards at his trial.
Wilson had made a deal with the district attorney for a life sentence in exchange for his testimony. Nonetheless, Wilson has recently recanted his statement, telling a reporter that he had acted alone, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Wilson is now telling the media he only testified against this man to avoid the death penalty. Wilson states that he committed the murder on his own and was not paid.
Wilson signed an affidavit this year, saying that he was actually in a secret relationship with Ms. Cantrell, and he shot her at her apartment during an argument over his drug addiction, Mr. Wilson said. Mr. Edwards had confessed to hiring someone to kill Ms. Cantrell, but he quickly recanted and argued during his trial that the confession was coerced.
But Mr. Edwards, who is black, was convicted and sentenced to death in St. Louis County by a 12-member jury that was all white. The jury composition was brought up in an earlier appeal, which was rejected by the court. In a statement, Nixon, a Democrat, said he was convinced that the evidence supports the decision to convict Edwards of 1st-degree murder, and that Edwards will remain in prison for the rest of his life. "This is a step not taken lightly, and only after significant consideration of the totality of the circumstances," Nixon said. Missouri leads the nation in executions per capita for 2014 and 2015. Mr. Nixon has commuted just 1 other death sentence since he became governor in 2009.
20 inmates have been executed since then.