Missouri Avenue murder

Ryan Patterson, who is serving three life sentences for the 2009 deaths of a pregnant Cape Girardeau woman and her 15-year-old son, will have another day in court next month as he tries to convince a Cape Girardeau County circuit judge to overturn his conviction...

Of course he was relieved, Bruce Orman said Tuesday, that a Missouri appeals court upheld the conviction of the man who murdered his son. But that should not be misconstrued into the incorrect notion that he believes justice has been served in the brutal shootings of Orman's pregnant ex-wife and their teenage son...

Ryan Patterson was a different man Monday. Throughout a trial process that found him guilty of murdering Jamie Orman, her teenage son Derrick and her unborn child in October 2009, he proceeded with confidence, often posing for cameras and yelling to family members in the courtroom.

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Samuel Hughes has said he thought he was standing as a lookout for a burglary Oct. 27, 2009. He didn't know about a plot to kill John Lawrence for insurance money. He didn't know Jamie Orman, her son Derrick and her unborn son would die that morning. He didn't know Ryan Patterson would face life in jail.

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- Michelle Lawrence, the woman who pleaded guilty to conceiving a plot to kill her husband for insurance money, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday for her role in a botched plan that instead resulted in the 2009 murders a pregnant woman and her teenage son...

When Jamie Orman was buried, her sister stood over her grave and made a promise. She would make sure Jamie's killer was brought to justice and put to death for his crimes. With Thursday's jury recommendation for Ryan Patterson of life in prison, Kelly Hoffman said that promise will never come true...

After brief deliberation, the jurors in the Ryan Patterson capital murder case have decided whether he should live or die. They chose life.

After nearly three hours of deliberations and listening to another full day of courtroom drama Wednesday, the jury sent out a handwritten note.

The state was ready to rest, but there was one more voice prosecutors wanted the jury to hear first -- defendant Ryan Patterson. In a darkened courtroom Tuesday, jurors watched an hourlong video of Patterson's interview with police from the night following the 2009 murders of Jamie Lynn Orman and her teenage son, Derrick. ...

Following a car crash on Labor Day weekend in 2009, John Lawrence recalled a heated exchange he had with his estranged wife, Michelle. "I almost died in a truck wreck," he said he told her. "You would have been rich." In the first day of the murder trial of Ryan Patterson on Monday...

In the weeks before the killings, Ryan Patterson and Michelle Lawrence talked about living the "high life." They only they saw that happening, Lawrence testified Tuesday, was if her estranged husband was out of the picture. "I wouldn't have to worry about John fighting for custody of my kids, and we wouldn't be hurting for money anymore," she said during the second day of Patterson's murder trial...

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- A Chaffee, Mo., woman accused of masterminding a murder plot pleaded guilty Friday in a Bollinger County courtroom to conspiracy to commit murder in connection to the deaths of Jamie Lynn Orman, her unborn child and her teenage son.

A trial date scheduled for Friday for Michelle Lawrence, charged with a single felony count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, was postponed by Circuit Judge William Syler to 2 p.m. June 24 at the Bollinger County Courthouse in Marble Hill...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Despite a Southeast Missouri family's hope that state lawmakers would consider upping the maximum sentence for conspiracy to commit murder, Republican Stanley Cox, chairman of the judiciary committee, said Thursday there will be no such legislation...

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Samuel Hughes had just seen Ryan Patterson, gun in hand, standing over a dying 15-year-old boy. Now, Hughes was sitting in a car with Patterson, who was pointing the silver revolver at him. "Loose lips sink ships," Patterson allegedly told him. "Tell anyone and I will kill you."...

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- Samuel Hughes had just seen Ryan Patterson, gun in hand, standing over a dying 15-year-old boy. Now, Hughes was sitting in a car with Patterson, who was pointing the silver revolver at him.

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- The three defendants authorities say are connected to the Oct. 27, 2009, murders of Jamie Lynn Orman and her sons will not appear before a judge again until next year.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- If Jamie Lynn Orman were alive today, members of her family say, she'd be getting ready to celebrate her favorite holiday, Halloween, and her fourth son Joey's first birthday. Never did the family imagine that their sister, mother, daughter and aunt would be dead and those accused in her killing would still be awaiting trial. Orman, her 15-year-old son Derrick and unborn son Joey were shot and killed at a home on Missouri Avenue in Cape Girardeau on Oct. 27 last year...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- It's not hard for Kelly Yates of Perryville to remember the first few things she did the morning of Oct. 27 one year ago.

A Cape Girardeau murder case will go before a panel of Pemiscot County jurors at the courthouse in Jackson in August, Circuit Judge William L. Syler decided Monday. The defendant, Ryan Patterson, is accused of killing Jamie Lynn Orman, her son Derrick and unborn child Oct. 27...

The judge in a Cape Girardeau murder case ruled on a motion to suppress statements made by the defendant shortly after the Oct. 27 murders of Jamie Lynn Orman, her unborn child and her 15-year-old son, Derrick.

The judge in a Cape Girardeau murder case has delayed deciding whether to suppress statements made by the defendant.

A second motion hearing Wednesday before Circuit Judge William L. Syler in the case of Ryan Patterson was continued to May 18 so the defense attorney in the case can review new materials presented to him by the prosecution.

Proscutors will seek the death penalty for the man charged in the Oct. 27 killings of Jamie Lynn Orman and her son, Derrick.

A suspect in an Oct. 27 Cape Girardeau triple murder whose case was moved to Mississippi County last month received a trial date Tuesday before Circuit Court Judge David Dolan.

For the second time in less than a month, the case against Ryan T. Patterson, the main suspect in the Oct. 27 murders of Jamie Lynn Orman and her son, has been delayed before Circuit Court Judge William Syler. The case against Samuel "Ray Ray" Hughes, another suspect in the Orman murders, will not be tried in Cape Girardeau County...

For the second time in less than a month, the case against Ryan T. Patterson, the main suspect in the Oct. 27 murders of Jamie Lynn Orman and her son, has been delayed before Circuit Court Judge William Syler.

The attorney for a Cape Girardeau man accused in the murders of Jamie Lynn Orman and her son Derrick Orman asked for more time to obtain evidence in the case in a court hearing today in Jackson.

Two of the three suspects in the Oct. 27 shooting deaths of a pregnant woman and her 15-year-old son appeared in court Monday, one to learn where she would be tried and the other to enter a formal plea of not guilty.

Samuel R. "Ray Ray" Hughes' own words to a police detective provided enough evidence Tuesday to send him to trial on three counts of murder, burglary and attempted arson.

A Cape Girardeau man accused of allegedly killing a pregnant woman and her 15-year-old son will have his case heard before a Pemiscot County jury in a Cape Girardeau County courtroom.

The man accused of first-degree murder in the October shooting of a pregnant woman and her 15-year-old son in Cape Girardeau wants his case moved to another county.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Family members of Derrick and Jamie Orman are holding a benefit Saturday in Perryville. Derrick Orman, 15, and his mother Jamie Orman, 30, were killed Oct. 27 in Cape Girardeau. Derrick Orman was a sophomore at Perryville High School. ...

The woman authorities say set in motion to plot that led to the deaths of a pregnant woman and her 15-year-old son last month waived her preliminary hearing in a Cape Girardeau County courtroom today. Michelle R. Lawrence, 39, is charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. She is accused of initiating a plot to kill her estranged husband, John Lawrence, which resulted in the death of John Lawrence's fiancee, Jamie Orman, and Orman's 15-year-old son Derrick...

The woman authorities say set in motion to plot that led to the deaths of a pregnant woman and her 15-year-old son last month waived her preliminary hearing in a Cape Girardeau County courtroom today.

A suspect in the Oct. 27 killings on North Missouri Avenue in Cape Girardeau will hear some of the evidence against him Dec. 22, Associate Circuit Judge Gary A. Kamp ruled Monday. In a brief hearing, Samuel R. "Ray Ray" Hughes, 25, 326 S. Lorimier St., accepted the services of the public defender's office. Hughes had told Kamp on Nov. 2 that he intended to hire a private lawyer. Monday's hearing was to determine if he had done so, but Hughes applied for representation by the public defender...

Teens in Perryville will have the opportunity let loose and dance weeks after coping with the death of a peer. "We're planning on letting them express their feelings and have a good time," Kelly Yates said. Yates is holding a teen dance fundraiser in honor of her sister, Jamie Orman, and nephew, Derrick Orman, who was a student at Perryville High School...

John Lawrence wants his wife, Michelle R. Lawrence, to pay dearly for allegedly urging her boyfriend, Ryan Patterson, to murder him. The attack at his home last week that killed his fiancee, Jamie Lynn Orman, 30, her unborn child and her 15-year-old son, Derrick Orman, occurred because Michelle Lawrence wouldn't accept that their marriage was over, he said Tuesday...

Samuel R. "Ray Ray" Hughes asked for and was granted more time to find a defense lawyer in his initial appearance in a Cape Girardeau County courtroom Monday on three counts of second-degree murder, one count of first-degree burglary and one count of attempted arson in the shooting death of Jamie Lynn Orman, her 15-year-old son Derrick and her unborn child.

The two men accused of murder in the Cape Girardeau deaths of a woman and her son early Tuesday will also face attempted arson charges, Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said today. Ryan T. Patterson, 28, and Samuel R. "Ray Ray" Hughes, 25, will be charged with felony attempted arson for bringing a full can of gasoline with them when they went to 1224 N. ...

A man persuaded to go to 1224 N. Missouri Ave. to take part in a burglary today became the third suspect facing a long prison term after a woman, her son and her unborn child were murdered Tuesday.

Jamie Lynn Orman and her 15-year-old son died Tuesday morning when a murder conspiracy aimed at Jamie Orman's boyfriend went wrong, documents filed with murder charges revealed. Ryan Patterson, 28, entered the home that John Lawrence shared with Jamie Orman at 1224 N. Missouri Ave., in the predawn hours Tuesday and shot a .44 caliber bullet through a comforter into Orman's head, Scott Eakers of the Jackson Police Department wrote in a sworn statement detailing the investigation by the Cape Girardeau/Bollinger County Major Case Squad.

The estranged wife accused of a murder conspiracy that resulted in Tuesday's shooting of a pregnant woman and a teenager in Cape Girardeau was in the middle of an apparently bitter divorce.

A 15-year-old boy shot in his mother's residence before dawn Tuesday reached his two younger brothers, one of whom called 911, before he died of his injuries, Cape Girardeau Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jason Selzer said.