FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :     Monday, June 4, 2012  
CONTACT:    Sara Rabern,  (605) 773-3215 

United States Supreme Court Upholds Moeller Rape and Murder Conviction and Sentence

PIERRE, S.D.  –  Attorney General Marty Jackley announced today that the United States Supreme Court affirmed Donald Eugene Moeller’s conviction for the 1990 rape and murder of a 9-year-old Sioux Falls girl.

Two juries of South Dakota citizens considered the evidence in two trials, which included Moeller’s DNA, and both unanimously decided that Moeller’s crime warranted a death sentence.

The Attorney General’s Office is awaiting receipt of the Supreme Court’s official written order and the letter transmitting the order from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to the federal trial court.

“The highest court in the land has spoken,” said Jackley. “Becky O’Connell suffered unimaginably before she died at the hands of Donald Moeller.  Moeller has received 22 years of due process, justice for Becky and her family is overdue.”

Moeller has a challenge to his method of execution pending in the federal court in Sioux Falls.

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