Options running out for white supremacist serial killer as Missouri moves toward execution

FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 19, 1998, file photo, Joseph Paul Franklin sits in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court where jury selection was set to begin in his murder trial in Cincinnati. Franklin has been convicted of five murders, but authorities suspect he's responsible for many more during a cross-country murder spree more than three decades ago, but it was the killing of a man outside a St. Louis-area synagogue in 1977 that landed Franklin on Missouri's death row. He's scheduled to die Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013, the first execution in nearly three years in Missouri. (AP Photo/Al Behrman, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this June 2, 1981, file photo, Joseph Paul Franklin is shown following his conviction on two counts of first degree murder in Salt Lake City. Franklin has been convicted of five murders, but authorities suspect he's responsible for many more during a cross-country murder spree more than three decades ago, but it was the killing of a man outside a St. Louis-area synagogue in 1977 that landed Franklin on Missouri's death row. He's scheduled to die Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013, the first execution in nearly three years in Missouri. (AP Photo/File) (The Associated Press)

ST. LOUIS – Less than 24 hours before his planned execution in Missouri, options were dwindling for white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin.

Franklin is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing a man in a sniper attack outside a St. Louis-area synagogue in 1977. It was one of as many as 20 killings committed by Franklin, who targeted blacks and Jews in a cross-country spree from 1977 to 1980. He was convicted of seven other murders but the Missouri case was the only one resulting in a death sentence.

On Monday, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon refused to halt the execution, calling Franklin's crime in Missouri a "cowardly and calculated shooting."

The execution would be the first in Missouri in nearly three years.