Walter Blair Jr. was born on September 29, 1960, into a troubled and violent household in Missouri. He was one of ten siblings, growing up in deep poverty. His mother suffered from mental illness, had only a ninth-grade education, and later killed her common-law husband in 1978. Violence and instability plagued the Blair household, and many of Walter’s siblings would later engage in criminal activities. Among them was his younger brother Terry Blair, who went on to become a convicted serial killer responsible for at least seven murders. These early hardships, coupled with exposure to crime and abuse, shaped Walter Blair’s troubled upbringing and path toward violence.

By his late teens, Walter Blair was already entangled in crime. On January 15, 1979, 16-year-old Sandy Shannon was found shot dead in a snowbank, and Blair was arrested days later, facing capital murder, robbery, and assault charges. However, witnesses refused to testify, and by mid-1979, all charges were dropped. Blair spent months in jail awaiting trial, during which he met fellow inmate Larry Jackson.

While incarcerated in 1979, Walter Blair met Larry Jackson, who was awaiting trial for raping 21-year-old Katherine Jo Allen. Jackson feared that Allen’s testimony would convict him, so he approached Blair with a deadly offer—$6,000 to kill her and stop the trial. Blair accepted the contract.

On August 19, 1979, Blair abducted Katherine Allen from her apartment in the early morning hours. He drove her to a vacant lot, where a fatal struggle ensued. Allen, pleading for her life, grabbed for Blair’s gun, which went off several times, fatally shooting her. Blair later called Jackson to report the murder as “good news.”

Police arrested Blair on August 22, 1979. In custody, he gave a detailed, videotaped confession, explaining how he abducted and killed Allen. He also revealed where Allen’s driver’s license and burned checkbook were hidden, leading investigators to recover the evidence. Despite later recanting his confession and alleging police coercion, the case against him was strong.

In October 1980, Walter Blair faced trial before an all-white jury and was convicted of Katherine Allen’s murder. The next day, jurors recommended the death penalty, and on January 14, 1981, he was formally sentenced to death. Meanwhile, Jackson never stood trial for Allen’s rape but was later sentenced to life for an unrelated murder.

Blair’s legal team pursued appeals for more than a decade. In the days before his scheduled execution in July 1993, new affidavits surfaced. Larry Jackson claimed he had actually hired another man, Ernest Jones, to commit the murder. Jones, who had been the prosecution’s main witness, was alleged to have framed Blair. Six other affidavits from people close to Jones supported these claims. However, the courts rejected this last-minute evidence, citing Blair’s own confession and physical evidence that tied him to the crime.

On July 21, 1993, Walter Blair Jr. was executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center. He declined to make a final statement and refused a last meal. At the time of his death, he was Missouri’s longest-serving death row inmate. Though doubts remained about his true level of involvement, his execution closed a case marked by poverty, violence, and possible wrongful conviction.