Convicted killer charged in Missouri deaths seeks trial move

HILLSBORO, Mo. -- An Illinois man serving life sentences for six killings in his home state has asked a judge to move his next murder trial to another town in Missouri in hopes of increasing the likelihood of an unbiased jury.

A team of public defenders appeared in court Monday with Nicholas Sheley, 36, in Jefferson County. They argued Sheley can't get a fair trial there on charges related to the deaths of an Arkansas couple during an alleged two-state killing spree over seven years ago.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if he's convicted in the killings of Jill and Tom Estes of Sherwood, Arkansas. Police say the couple was attacked outside a Festus hotel after leaving a 2008 graduation party.

The judge asked the attorneys on both sides to submit written arguments by mid-February.

Sheley was extradited in February to Missouri from Illinois, where he was found guilty in a string of killings that began in his hometown of Sterling.

Four victims who had been bludgeoned with a hammer were found in a Rock Falls apartment. They ranged in age from 2 years to 29. The other victims were a 65-year-old man whose body was found behind a Galesburg grocery store in northwestern Illinois and a 93-year-old man killed in Sterling.

Unlike in Illinois, offenders can be sentenced to death in neighboring Missouri. A June court filing outlining the state's decision to pursue the death penalty cites Sheley's convictions in the six Illinois killings as well as three other aggravating circumstances, including his attempt to rob the Arkansas couple while committing an "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman" killing.

The sole witness at Monday's nearly three-hour hearing, University of Kansas communications studies professor Thomas Beisecker, testified on Sheley's behalf that any pool of prospective Jefferson County jurors would have been exposed to significant media coverage of the case.

"There is a substantial amount of prejudice that currently exists in Jefferson County against Mr. Sheley," said Beisecker, who noted under cross-examination that he was paid $175 an hour as an expert witness, so far receiving about $12,000.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Steve Jerrell questioned the statistical rigor of a telephone survey of county residents by Advocacy Research Institute, the Kansas professor's jury consulting business. Jerrell noted that while 180 of the 307 respondents said they had heard of the Sheley case, the interviewers failed to ask several questions that could have excluded prospective jurors, including whether any were convicted felons. The consultant's questions also contained several factual errors about the case, including the location of a pickup truck Sheley stole after killing one of his victims in Illinois.

"If you ask the wrong questions, the answers are not credible," he said.

Four members of the Estes family attended the hearing but declined comment.