Law Enforcement Officials Attend Execution

Investigators who collected evidence at the crime scene and other law enforcement officials that were apart of the case attended Tuesday’s execution.

Former Lincoln County Sheriff Ken Albers was the first on the scene after two men found Becky O'Connell's body near Lake Alvin. He says it was the worst crime scene he's ever seen. He is witnessing the execution Tuesday night.

"It seems like I should and I don't know exactly why. I couldn't tell you that. I don't know. I just feel like I should be there,” Albers said.

And Mike Larsen, the former Sioux Falls Police Detective, who helped identify Donald Moeller as a suspect in Becky O'Connell's murder, is among those witnessing Moeller's execution.

The abduction, rape and murder of nine-year-old Becky O'Connell was the first time a crime of that magnitude had happened in South Dakota. 

Larsen says he remembers working on the missing persons case, but when police found out O'Connell's body was discovered in rural Lincoln County it was chilling news that caused investigators to pause.

"We were there when it was just a missing persons report and we were all hoping that we'd find her, get her back home and go onto something else. But when they called us in and told us they found a little girl's body down by Lake Alvin it was total silence,” Larsen said.

Larsen says he himself had a two year old girl at the time of the crime and remembered thinking to himself what his reaction would have been if something like that happened to his daughter.

Albers says when he heard Moeller's execution had finally been scheduled after decades of appeals his first reaction was, ‘it's about time.’