9 reasons the wrong man was convicted in the Lawless case

The Angela Mischelle Lawless murder case from Nov. 8, 1992, is complicated with many wrongdoings and missteps. Here is a list of 9 reasons where the original investigation went askew, and why the wrong man, Joshua Kezer, was sent to prison. (Compiled by Mark Bliss and Bob Miller from new reporting, court records and previous reporting)

1. Witness not held:

Wes Drury, who is currently Scott County Sheriff, was the jailer on the night of Mischelle Lawless's murder. Drury was on the phone trying to reach first responders when a man claiming to be Matt Abbott walked in to report the crime.

On the night of the murder (it was after midnight, about 1:30 a.m.), Mark Abbott drove from the crime scene to the sheriff�s department, but he told the jailer that he was Matt Abbott, Mark�s twin. Matt Abbott has denied being involved. Mark Abbott ended up being the star witness in the case. But the jailer at the time, Wes Drury, released Mark Abbott without questioning. Rick Walter, the former sheriff who re-opened the case which helped lead to the exoneration of Joshua Kezer, said it was the first mistake made in the case. Mark Abbott went back to the crime scene, where Benton officer Roy Moore called Drury to say Abbott had arrived on the scene. Drury again released Abbott. Mark Abbott was questioned the following day. Terri Williams, Kevin Williams� ex-wife, said Mark Abbott and Williams went to a nearby trailer home sales lot (where the crime is alleged to have started) the next day to look for evidence. Drury is now the sheriff, having unseated Walter in the last election with support from Bill Ferrell, the sheriff at the time of the Lawless murder.

2. Lying informants:

The case against Kezer unraveled when the three imprisoned informants recanted their testimony about hearing Kezer confess to the murder. It was a made-up story from the start. All of the people who testified against Kezer have recanted. Furthermore, one of Kezer�s cellmates, Jeff Rogers, testified Kezer always insisted he was innocent, and �testified that Sheriff (Bill) Ferrell called him into his office and presented him with a statement, which already was prepared, claiming that Josh Kezer confessed. He did not want to sign it because it was not true, but did sign after the sheriff threatened to make life difficult for him if he refused and to help him out if he cooperated,� according to a court ruling authored by Judge Richard Callahan.�

3. Rush to charges:

Former Scott County Sheriff Bill FerrellSoutheast Missourian file

Not everyone working the case was convinced the original case was ready for trial, but once Ferrell documented the informent testimony against Kezer, he obtained a warrant for arrest. Don Windham, then with the Missouri State Highway Patrol and assisting in the investigation, testified he thought the case was not yet ready. �The charges, when I came back, were a surprise to me because I didn�t, at that point, feel like that I had finished the investigation enough to know what the truth of the charges were. The Sheriff got the warrants on his own, without telling me that he had the warrants charging him with first-degree murder.�

4. Bad lineup:

Mark Abbott, now a suspect in the Mischelle Lawless murder, originally used this photo to pick out Josh Kezer as the person he said he saw near the crime scene. Kezer was exonerated in 2009.

Mark Abbott was the only person to put Kezer in Missouri at the time of the murder. By the time he was asked to pick a man out of a lineup, Mark Abbott had already incorrectly named a different suspect (Ray Ring, a black man); and he had changed the descriptions of men he had seen near the murder scene several times. Kezer didn�t look like any of the men Abbott previously described (black or Latino with dark skin). But�Kezer, a white man, was the person picked out of the lineup. Abbott was told, according to court testimony, the suspect was in the lineup. He picked the only man with �police department� emblazoned on the photo.�Abbott later admitted�in a letter to the Southeast Missourian, �I ask myself, could I be wrong about him, and the answer is yes. At that time, I believed it was him,� adding that when he identified Kezer, Scott County officers �looked like they hit the lottery.� Editor's note: Days after originally publishing this story, the Southeast Missourian discovered a reference in an appeals case, where Mark Abbott testified he had seen Kezer's photo in the newspaper before he was asked to pick a photo out of the lineup.

5. Failure to disclose:

The prosecution is obligated to share with the defense any materials that would be helpful to the defense. But it did not turn over a report from then Scott City police officer Bobby Wooten, in which Mark Abbott named Ray Ring as the person he saw looking for gas in a small white car near the murder scene. This report was found by Scott County Sheriff�s investigator Branden Caid. It directly contradicted Abbott�s identification of Kezer. Abbott made this claim 10 days after the murder. Wooten testified he told Ferrell this information. Ferrell interviewed Ring the next morning following Wooten�s dated report, meaning the sheriff knew Abbott had implicated someone other than Kezer prior to the lineup and prior to using Abbott as the star witness in the case. The state failed to disclose the investigative notebooks of then-Scott County deputy Brenda Schiwitz, to which Wooten�s report was attached. Schiwitz told the court under direct questioning from Kezer�s defense attorney she had disposed of her notes after transcribing them into her formal reports, but that was not true, as it was precisely those preserved notes that helped free Kezer. Beyond that, it was shown she did not include information from her notes that would have helped Kezer in her official investigative summaries.

6. Suspect or not?

Mark Abbott (screen grab from 48 Hours episode)

It�s unclear whether Mark Abbott was truly considered a suspect in the original investigation. Abbott�s many changes in his descriptions of what he saw the night of the murder led officer Tom Beardslee to name him as a suspect at the time, according to court documents, but Schiwitz told the trial jury Mark Abbott was not considered a suspect. Schiwitz herself had Abbott listed as a suspect on Nov. 11 of that year. But it�s not clear how or why they eliminated Mark Abbott. Walter said Abbott was never truly investigated as a suspect in the original trial, and treated more like a �Good Samaritan.� Abbott is one of two suspects in the case today. Witness Heather Pierce testified in a deposition Mark Abbott came to her house the night of the murder. She said in a deposition Mark Abbott told her �I think I just touched a dead girl. I might have blood on my hands. Where is a mirror? Where is the light? Where is the bathroom?� She said he came back out shaking. She said he told her there was a girl slumped over in the seat and �he reached in and grabbed her and pulled her up to see if she was okay, if she had passed out or something, and he said he saw something what looked like maybe blood or holes in the back of her neck and when he lifted her up, he saw more blood and that frightened him and he let her go.� Authorities did not test for gun residue, nor collect DNA during the initial investigation. At the time Abbott offered to do a polygraph test, but Ferrell did not have Abbott take one. �Everyone was suspicious, Mr. [Al] Lowes,� Ferrell said to the defense attorney in a deposition. �But he was not a suspect.�

7. Kezer's alibis not checked

Josh Kezer with his mother, Joan Kezer, following his exoneration in 2009. Kezer had family members who vouched for his whereabouts the night of the murder, but investigators did not check to confirm Kezer's alibis. Southeast Missourian ~ file

According to depositions, Ferrell did not direct anyone within the department to check Kezer�s alibis in Kankakee, Illinois. Kezer�s family members said he was in Illinois that night. They were certain of the date and time in question, because Kezer went to check on a family friend who was in a car wreck Nov. 8. Neither Hulshof nor local prosecutor Christy Baker-Neel assigned investigators to check his alibi, Kezer says. According to Kezer, he was never questioned by the state and never asked if he did it.

8. Misrepresentation by prosecution:

Kenny Hulshof was assigned the Lawless case as a special prosecutor. A judge said that Hulshof was untruthful in his characterization of substances found on Kezer's jacket, that were found not to be blood. Hulshof characterized the substance as blood, even though he was informed in pretrial depositions that it was not blood.Southeast Missourian ~ file

Special prosecutor Kenny Hulshof told falsehoods during trial. In Judge Richard Callahan�s words: �The prosecution presented two microscopic specks in Christie Naile�s Plymouth Duster (the car Kezer was alleged to have stolen to commit the murder) and the few specks in Kezer�s leather jacket that reacted with Luminal as if they were the victim�s blood. The prosecution knew the Luminal results showed the substance or substances in the Duster and on the jacket were not human blood � The prosecutor also knew there was no evidence linking any of it � to Mischelle Lawless or Josh Kezer. Nevertheless, he told the jury in closing it was no coincidence the Luminal test revealed �the presence of blood on the jacket� and that the car �glows like a Christmas tree.�� The prosecution also told the jury in the closing statement they put Kezer at the scene with gun in hand. The�murder weapon was never found.

9. Inaccurate testimony by surprise witness:

Chantelle Crider Carlisle testifies Dec. 2 at the Cole County courthouse she made a mistake when she identified Josh Kezer as the one she saw arguing with Mischelle Lawless at a Halloween party a week before her death in 1992.

In a�surprising twist in the original trial, a witness emerged to testify she saw Kezer and Lawless arguing at a Halloween party 10 days before the murder. This witness, Chantelle Crider,�gave the jury a motive in the case. But Kezer was not at the party.�Lacey Warren Hall and Dawn Worley Pierce saw a report of Crider�s testimony in the newspaper, and told Kezer�s attorneys they knew all of the boys at the party, and Kezer was not in attendance. Later, Crider testified she was mistaken. Law enforcement likely knew the incident described by Crider at the party was between Lawless and Todd Mayberry. Mayberry was briefly considered a suspect in the case, and Lawless had written about the incident in her diary. Law enforcement had access to the diary from the beginning of the investigation. Furthermore, Crider told �48 Hours� she was pushed hard by then-Sheriff Bill Ferrell. �He kept going on and on and on about how my testimony � that it was that important, because I was what they needed to link them together.�

FERRELL STANDS BY WORK

When reached by phone recently, Ferrell said he doesn�t know what the department could have done differently at the time. �All the information we worked on was good, solid information we received.� When exonerated, Kezer filed a lawsuit, which was settled before it reached trial, the result of which harmed the county�s standing to be insured, former sheriff Rick Walter said. Ferrell continues to be involved with Wes Drury�s sheriff department in some capacity. A former deputy told the Southeast Missourian that Ferrell was seen consulting with current sheriff department detectives about an ongoing cold case. Ferrell confirmed he met with detectives about an unsolved case, but not the Lawless case.

KEZER'S RESPONSE

Kezer said of all the mishaps and wrongdoings that transpired, his arrest upsets him most. He said: �Had that not happened, we�re not having this conversation (about) Wes Drury and Ferrell�s mishandling of the Abbott brothers. (Or) Ferrell, Morley Swingle, and Kenny Hulshof�s dealings with the fraudulent jailhouse snitches. Had the Abbotts and snitches been investigated with integrity, I wouldn�t have been arrested, charged, and tortured as an innocent teenaged boy.�

-- Compiled by Mark Bliss and Bob Miller