Bollinger County man appealing 1988 conviction for rape

EDITOR'S NOTE: Incorrect wording in the second paragraph has been corrected.

After serving a quarter of his 60-year prison sentence in Cameron, Mo., Bollinger County man Ronnie Dale Walker is suing over his 1988 conviction on four felony charges, including rape.

A petition filed by Walker in mid-December indicates he has always thought he was falsely identified by the victim in the case, a Zalma, Mo., woman, who reported to police in May 1988 that she and her husband were robbed at gunpoint. She said she'd also been raped and forced to commit sodomy on the perpetrator.

Walker also alleges the Missouri State Highway Patrol violated state law by destroying DNA evidence in his case and accuses the then-director of the patrol's Troop E of lying in court documents.

In 2003, partially into his 15th year of incarceration, Walker began to seek relief from his sentence when he learned of a statute passed in 2001 allowing for post-conviction DNA testing for offenses where identification of the accused was an issue. Also in 2003, Walker became aware of another law passed in 2001 requiring the highway patrol to preserve any DNA samples tested in a felony case.

With his petition, Walker is seeking declaratory judgment or release from prison by the Cole County Circuit Court, based on claims that the destroyed DNA evidence could have proved his innocence at trial.

After a one-day jury trial, Walker was convicted of rape, sodomy, first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. The court sentenced him to 15 years on each count, to be served consecutively.

Listed in the 2010 lawsuit is the highway patrol, Bollinger County Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Gray, former highway patrol colonel and commanding officer Roger Stottlemyer, former highway patrol regional commanding officer James Keathley and former sergeant L. Hickman. All summonses have been issued, but court documents indicate Keathley's and Hickman's summonses couldn't be delivered.

In the petition, Walker claims the victim misidentified him and changed her story at the time of trial. Walker said she first described the place of attack to be too dark to see her assailant but then testified at trial that it was light enough to see the man who raped and assaulted her. She claimed the perpetrator was clean-shaven with sideburns but entered into evidence at trial was a photograph of Walker that depicted him as having a full beard and mustache at the time of his arrest, which was the same night of the incident.

Walker also claims the victim was examined by a doctor at Southeast Missouri Hospital and that a rape kit didn't reveal any signs of sexual activity.

Walker describes in the petition reports filed by Keathley that say hair and dirt samples taken from the victim's home were logged into evidence. The report says a single head hair found in a nylon stocking allegedly worn by the perpetrator during the rape was also logged into evidence.

A crime lab technician who testified at Walker's trial said a head hair sample taken from the defendant at the time of his arrest didn't match DNA taken from the victim or collected at the scene of the crime.

Walker said in the petition that the results of a pubic hair analysis were the only forensic evidence that "tended to establish" his guilt. The same crime lab technician testified in court that a single pubic hair combed from the victim's pubic area had similar characteristics as Walker's. Comparison testing was done microscopically, Walker wrote, because of technological limits in 1988, which is why he was seeking complete testing in 2004.

Walker claims other documents he discovered in 2009 indicated that Keathley filed a false report, stating that he'd driven Walker to a clinic in Marble Hill, Mo., for the collection of pubic hair, blood and saliva samples. Walker said in his petition that he was never taken to the clinic.

With the help of a private attorney, Walker first filed the motion for DNA testing in July 2004, about a year after finding out about the new Missouri statutes. William Syler, presiding over case in the Bollinger County, ordered Gray to show cause that testing shouldn't be granted.

In the discovery portion of the 2004 proceedings, the court learned that DNA evidence, including head and pubic hair, submitted to the crime lab was destroyed after the 2001 statute was passed and a rape kit had been lost, Walker stated in the civil suit.

Syler ordered that the case be dismissed in December 2004 because there was no evidence that DNA testing could be performed on.

Walker is representing himself in the civil suit, according to his petition. No hearing date has been set, according to the case entry on Missouri Case.net.

Gray has said he wouldn't comment on the suit, as the matter is still pending with the court. The Southeast Missourian was unable to obtain contact information for Keathley and Hickman.

The attorney general's office, which handles legal matters for the highway patrol, declined to comment on the case. Nanci Gonder, press secretary for Chris Koster, said it's policy to not comment on pending litigation. Calls to the highway patrol were referred to the attorney general's office.

Koster is listed in a separate suit filed in October in which Walker is seeking the same declaratory judgment or relief from his prison sentence.

In a motion filed Dec. 22, Koster is seeking to have the case dismissed.

In the motion, Koster writes that Walker fails to allege that there are grounds to seek legal action against him in the Cole County Circuit Court and that his claims have been denied in other state and federal courts and should be addressed to the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District. Koster also writes that Cole County lacks jurisdiction to grant the relief Walker is requesting.

There has been no action by the court to grant or dismiss the motion filed by Koster, a Cole County clerk said Thursday.

ehevern@semissourian.com

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