60 Missouri corrections officers, staffers urging governor to halt execution of ‘model inmate’

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Dozens of Missouri Department of Corrections employees are urging Gov. Mike Parson to grant clemency to a man set to die in April for killing his cousin and her husband, with a former warden calling him a “model inmate” .

Sixty corrections officers and other staff members signed a letter to the Republican governor in support of Brian Dorsey, the Kansas City Star reported Monday. The letter states that Dorsey, 51, “has stayed out of trouble, never gotten into a situation and has been respectful to us and his fellow inmates.” It says he is housed in an “honor dormitory” at the Potosi Correctional Center, a residential area for inmates with good behavior.

“We are part of the law enforcement community that believes in law and order,” the group wrote in the letter urging Parson to commute the sentence to life without parole. “We generally believe in the use of the death penalty. But we agree that the death penalty is not the appropriate punishment for Brian Dorsey.”

Dorsey was convicted of the 2006 murders of his cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband, Ben Bonnie, in the central Missouri town of New Bloomfield. His scheduled execution on April 9 would be the first in Missouri this year, after four were carried out in 2023.

A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for Parson on Monday.

Troy Steele, a former warden at Potosi, wrote in a review of Dorsey’s criminal record that he was a “model inmate” — so much so that he was allowed to serve as a barber. Steele said Dorsey has cut hair for inmates, officers and even Steele himself.

Dorsey’s execution is also opposed by his cousin, Jenni Gerhauser, who was also related to Sarah Bonnie.

“We live in the middle of an eye-for-an-eye country. But I wish people would understand that it is not so black and white,” she told the newspaper.

In an 80-page petition filed last month, Megan Crane, an attorney for Dorsey, wrote that her client was not provided with effective counsel before pleading guilty. She also said Dorsey “experienced drug psychosis the night of the crime and was thus incapable of deliberation – the requisite intent for capital murder.”