Robert Earl O'Neal Jr. was born on September 25, 1961, in Joplin, Missouri. 

On February 3, 1984, at around noon, O'Neal and fellow white supremacist inmates Lloyd Schlup and Rodnie Stewart orchestrated a brutal attack on 33-year-old Arthur Dade, a Black inmate serving a 22-year sentence for armed robbery.

The attack occurred in a hallway outside the prison dining hall. Schlup allegedly held Dade down, Stewart threw hot liquid in his face, and O'Neal stabbed him multiple times with a homemade ice pick. Dade died within 20 minutes due to severe wounds.

Prosecutors argued that the murder was a racially motivated, premeditated attack orchestrated by the Aryan Brotherhood. O'Neal claimed self-defense, but his plea was rejected by the court.

On March 22, 1985, O'Neal was convicted of capital murder, and on May 14, 1985, he was sentenced to death. His appeals failed, and his execution was carried out a decade later.

On December 6, 1995, at the age of 34, O'Neal was executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri. His final words were:

"Praise the Lord and the name of Jesus. I forgive everybody involved in this. Jesus is my Lord."

O'Neal refused a last meal and chose to fast before his execution. His case remains historically significant as he was one of the very few white individuals executed in the U.S. for killing a Black victim.