Daughter of murder victim wants Robinson released from prison

This story has been edited to correct the jail location where L.A. Thompson took his life. The Southeast Missourian regrets the error.

The daughter of murder victim Sheila Box is aligning herself on the side of David Robinson, who the state convicted of Box's murder.

Crystal King, who was 17 years old when her mother was shot in Sikeston in 2000, said in an interview with the Southeast Missourian she thinks Robinson should be released from prison.

"I just sort of followed it about a year ago," she said of Robinson's efforts for exoneration. "I heard the confession of Romanze Mosby; I saw a lot of police records are missing and about the two witnesses who recanted their story. And I truly believe Detective (John) Blakely and the Sikeston police are corrupt."

Robinson is awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court for exoneration. The court appointed a special master, Judge Darrell Missey, to make a recommendation on Robinson's case. Last month, Missey wrote that Robinson's legal team laid out a case exceeding the standard for an "actual innocence" claim, a rare ruling. Last week, the Missouri Attorney General issued a response to Missey's recommendation, asking the court to disregard several of his findings.

Sheila Box

Robinson was convicted on the testimony of two jailhouse informants, both of whom recanted their testimony. Mosby confessed on tape to public defense capital investigator Butch Johnson in 2004, but Mosby refused to authorize the recording with a signature and the recording was not allowed as evidence during Robinson's appeals. Years later, Mosby killed himself in his prison cell, but not before confessing his crime to several others, who testified to such in court. The state disputed the recording and the witnesses who said Mosby confessed.

Missey also wrote a scathing review of Blakely, calling him the least credible witness in the case. Blakely did not investigate Mosby as a suspect, even though he knew his name came up, Blakely testified in 2017 after denying in 2015 that he knew about Mosby as a suspect during the investigation of Robinson.

Blakely has been accused by witnesses of intimidating them to manipulate the case against Robinson, including using threats of drug charges against a defense witness if he obeyed a subpoena to testify for the defense. That witness did not show up to the trial to testify.

All of this has been hard for King to learn about, she said.

"It's opened up a lot of old wounds, things I'd thought I'd dealt with and buried," King said. "I can't say there will ever be justice for this, but it needs to be rectified; he needs to be released. It's just sad all the way around for everyone involved. There are no winners. A great disservice has been done to him and his family.

"I want to lend my support to David Robinson, and I think he's innocent, and I think Romanze Mosby was the killer and that it was probably a robbery gone bad," she said.

King said she wants people to know her mother was more than just a drug addict. King was 17 years old, living in a different state when Box was killed. King is now 36, the same age as her mother when she was shot in Sikeston.

"She was a wonderful mother ... and she had people who loved her," King said. "She was a free spirit and a gentle soul."

King said she did not attend the trial.

"I just went with what I was told; I thought they had the right person," she said. "I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes and I just didn't know, and I was so young, but I think they got the wrong guy."

She said her father, who was divorced from Box, shares her belief Robinson is innocent. King said her sister died several years ago.

L.A. Thompson, Box's fiance at the time of the murder, died in 2008 after hanging himself in his cell at the Cape Girardeau city holding cell following a DWI charge.

bmiller@semissourian.com

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