Inability to seat jury delays capital-murder case

The capital-murder case against Mark Gill was scheduled for trial this week in Boone County, Missouri, but now it seems Gill will not be in trial until late 2016 at the earliest.

Circuit Court Judge Robert Kaufman continued the case to an unspecified date because the court could not seat a jury. Attorneys in the case sent out questionnaires to 200 respective jurors but could not get 38 jurors who could objectively consider life without parole or the death penalty for Gill.

Gill, 45, of Cape Girardeau originally was convicted by a jury in New Madrid County, Missouri, who found him guilty of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping, armed criminal action and tampering with a motor vehicle in 2004.

Gill is accused of abducting Ralph Lape Jr. from his home, taking him into a Portageville, Missouri, cornfield and shooting him in the head before he burying Lape in a shallow grave. A New Madrid County jury later chose to sentence Gill to death, also in 2004.

The death sentence was overturned in December 2009 by the Missouri Supreme Court, who found Gill had ineffective counsel because it failed to question investigators about the contents of Lape's computer, which contained child pornography and sexually explicit instant messages about Lape's 17-year-old daughter.

Pertinent address: 705 E. Walnut St., Columbia, MO, 65201