KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Johnson County, Missouri, Fire Protection District reports one person died in an overnight fire in rural Johnson County.

Crews responded around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to a fully engulfed mobile home southeast of Warrensburg after a neighbor called 911 to report the blaze.

Only burning remnants remained of the double-wide when firefighters arrived near SE 350 Road east of Missouri Route 13.

“At the time of the initial report, the structure had already burned to the ground. It appears the residence was burning for some time before anyone noticed,” Johnson County Fire District Capt. Joe Jennings said in a news release.

Shortly after firefighters began battling the blaze, an “unidentified deceased individual” was located.

The Johnson County coroner is working to identify the victim.

Capt. Jennings said firefighters were unable to “determine if there were or were not smoke alarms in the home due to the amount of fire loss.”

Investigation into the fire is ongoing by the fire protection district’s investigative unit and the Missouri State Fire Marshal.

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Christopher Leroy Collings was executed in Missouri on Tuesday for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl.

Collings, 49, died by lethal injection at 6:10 p.m. CST at the Potosi Correctional Center in Bonne Terre.

“Right or wrong I accept this situation for what it is,” Collings said in a written final statement. “To anyone that I have hurt in this life I am sorry. I hope that you are able to get closure and move on.”

Collings is the 23rd inmate to be executed in the U.S. this year and the fourth in the state of Missouri.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant a stay of execution on Monday.

“Mr. Collings has received every protection afforded by the Missouri and United States Constitutions, and Mr. Collings’ conviction and sentence remain for his horrendous and callous crime,” Governor Michael Parson said in a statement on Monday. “The State of Missouri will carry out Mr. Collings’ sentence according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”

In 2007, Collings kidnapped Rowan Ford, the 9-year-old stepdaughter of one of his friends, according to court records. He was found guilty of raping the child and strangling her with chicken wire.

Collings has said that he did not intend to kill Ford, but he panicked when she recognized him. He had lived with her family for several months that year.

Ford’s body was found in a cave about a week after her disappearance. An autopsy ruled that she died due to strangulation.

Ford’s stepfather, David Wesley Spears, was also charged with rape and murder related to the incident. He had confessed to sexually assaulting and killing Ford, but Collings denied his involvement.

Prosecutors withdrew the murder charge in 2012.

Spears accepted a plea deal, agreeing to plead guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and hindrance of prosecution. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison and released in 2015.

“I am so proud of the girl that she was turning out to be,” Rowan’s older sister, Ariane Macks, Ford’s sister, told USA TODAY. “A part of me died when my sister died. I did lose my ray of sunshine.”

Macks said Collings deserved to be sentenced to death for killing Ford.

“I wanted him dead, I still do…but they could have done something better than lethal injection because he’s going out easy,” she said. “I cannot even imagine the pain when [Rowan] was strangled. Chris being so tall and so big [compared] to my little sister, she didn’t have a fighting chance.”

In Colling’s clemency petition, his attorneys said he suffered from a brain abnormality that caused “functional deficits in awareness, judgment and deliberation, comportment, appropriate social inhibition, and emotional regulation” and he experienced abuse as a child. Parson denied the petition.

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