Judge approves special prosecutor in Mischelle Lawless murder case

A special prosecutor has been appointed to review evidence in the 1992 murder case of Angela Mischelle Lawless, according to documents obtained by the Southeast Missourian through a public records request.

The move is the most significant procedural decision in the case since Scott County Prosecuting Attorney Don Cobb’s predecessor, Amanda Oesch, announced in January 2022 she was handing the case files over to the state Highway Patrol and Missouri attorney general cold case unit.

Cobb made the request to a judge to appoint “a special prosecutor regarding the death of Mischelle Lawless ... to investigate and prosecute charges against any responsible parties in the death of Mischelle Lawless,” according to the order signed by the judge. The document, dated June 1, gives the special prosecutor “all the duties and authorities to act as a prosecuting attorney in regards to the investigation and prosecution of this case.”

Cobb offered no comment on the decision, adhering to his policy, backed by the American Bar Association, to not make public statements regarding ongoing investigations.

Cobb redacted the name of the prosecutor, saying he did so as to not inundate the special prosecutor with phone calls and communications. People with tips and information about the case may call the Scott County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

(The Southeast Missourian knows the name of the special prosecutor, but is not publicly releasing the name at this time, per Cobb’s fear that distractions could hurt the special prosecutor’s ability to analyze existing evidence in the case. Should charges or an indictment arise, the name of the prosecutor will become publicly known.)

It is not clear whether the AG’s cold case unit or the Highway Patrol’s Division of Drug and Crime Control have added anything significant to the case or whether any new information prompted the appointment. Typically, the attorney general’s office supplies special prosecutors. In this case, an experienced local attorney with no previous ties to the case has been appointed.

In a statement emailed to the Southeast Missourian on Saturday, Lawless’ father, Marvin, welcomed the appointment.

“I see this step as long overdue in the effort to bring those responsible for Mischelle’s senseless murder and those complicit in impeding the investigation & prosecution of same to justice,” he said.

Exonerated

Josh Kezer, 19 at the time of his trial, was sentenced to 60 years for murder and armed criminal action in relation to Lawless’ death in June 1994, even though he presented witnesses at the time who placed him in Kankakee, Illinois, around the time of the murder. Kankakee is more than 300 miles from the Interstate 55 Benton, Missouri, exit ramp where Lawless was found dead from three gunshot wounds.

Kezer was exonerated in an “actual innocence” ruling in 2009, after serving 16 years in prison. A judge ordered his case vacated, not just because Kezer’s constitutional rights were violated multiple times, but also because Kezer proved his innocence, given the lack of physical evidence and the many new examples of evidence and testimony that cleared him.

No physical evidence connected Kezer to the crime. At the original trial in 1994, the state called jailhouse informants who said they’d heard Kezer confess to a murder at a party. Two of the informants tried to recant their statements before the trial, saying they offered the story to work deals for leniency. One stuck to his story after threats of additional charges of impeding an investigation. Another testified in Kezer’s defense. Multiple witnesses who testified for the state in the original trial have since stated they either made up the story to get deals or were pressured or coerced to give false statements.

Original investigation

Among the state’s witnesses in the original trial was Mark Abbott, now considered one of two primary suspects in the case. Abbott, an identical twin, has claimed to have reported the crime to the sheriff’s office the night of the murder after finding Lawless bleeding profusely in her car on the exit ramp. Abbott testified in 2009 he could have been wrong about his identification of Kezer. He stated he felt he picked the correct person due to the responses from law enforcement and stuck by that story because of other statements he had heard about the case.

Abbott has given many versions of what happened that night. The most important version was his identification of seeing Kezer at a pay phone at a gas station near the crime scene as he was trying to call 911 following his discovery of the girl he found in the car.

Months before identifying Kezer out of a lineup, Abbott gave multiple descriptions of the person he saw in the car that pulled up to the pay phone, but those descriptions of a dark-complected person, possibly Hispanic, did not describe Kezer’s appearance. In fact, two weeks after the murder, Abbott told a Scott City police officer, who had no role in the murder investigation, that he saw a teenager by the name of Ray Ring in the car at the pay phone. Ring is a mixed-race man with dark-complected skin from Sikeston, Missouri.

That report, in the possession of the sheriff’s department, was not disclosed to Kezer’s defense team, as well as a detective’s notebook that listed Mark Abbott as a suspect, which contradicted statements made under oath by Brenda Schiwitz, the lead sheriff detective in the original investigation. Schiwitz told the court Abbott was not a suspect “at any time” and also told defense attorneys she had destroyed her original notes, which were found when then-Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter reopened the case in 2006.

Other suspects

Since Kezer’s exoneration in 2009, Abbott and Kevin Williams, who were friends at the time, have been identified as suspects.

Both Abbott twins and Williams were primary subjects in a federal methamphetamine investigation called “Operation Speed Bump”, which began about four months after Kezer was convicted, when Williams was caught in possession of drugs and a weapon leaving a hotel in Cape Girardeau. In 1997, as the two-part federal investigation had reached the conviction and sentencing stage, Mark Abbott told former Cape Girardeau narcotics officer Bill Bohnert while in jail awaiting sentencing, that he saw Williams shoot Lawless. Abbott has denied he made the statement to Bohnert. Williams has denied being involved in the crime, saying he was instead at a party that night with his then-wife, who has publicly retracted her alibi. It’s been revealed over the course of several depositions that Williams was not forthcoming about Abbott coming to that party that night with his sister and girlfriend in an attempt to convince him to go to Sikeston.

Another witness, Ron Burton, has testified he was waiting for a friend in a fishing cabin not long after Kezer’s conviction when Mark Abbott entered the cabin with another man Burton did not know. Burton, friends with Lawless’ father, was curious about the case and asked Mark Abbott what happened. Burton said Abbott told him they had the wrong man in prison, adding, “I took care of the bitch,” according to Burton’s recollection of the conversation. Burton said the statement shocked him.

Other witnesses stated under oath that Williams told them that Mark Abbott was involved in the murder.

In addition to these statements, former Sheriff Walter hired reconstruction and DNA experts to examine the evidence. Reconstructionists and DNA experts have refuted Abbott’s version of how he interacted with Lawless’ body upon her alleged discovery that night. Abbott claims he reached through an open window, grabbed Lawless’ shoulder as she was slumped over in the passenger seat, lifted her up, saw her bloody face, then dropped her back down.

Photos show, along with multiple statements by officers and emergency responders, the window was only partially rolled down.

According to previous interviews with Walter, the DNA experts have concluded Abbott touched Lawless’ clothing in a place that contradicts his statement. Reconstructionists have concluded Abbott could not have lifted Lawless from a lying position because of the position of the window. Reconstructionists have also stated they could not replicate how Lawless could have been lifted up and dropped in such a way that when she collapsed, the bullet in her arm perfectly aligned with her exit wound from her chest.

Lawless was found in her car with bullet wounds to the face, head and side. It’s believed the first shot was to her face, meaning she saw her murderer.

Most of the blood found in the car was because of a gash in her head that would not have been fatal. Blood pools were found down the embankment; and around the outside of the car, with a trail of drops that led back to Lawless’ car. A smudge was found on the guardrail. It’s believed Lawless was struck in the head at the bottom of the embankment and carried back to the car and placed into the driver’s seat before she was shot.

Oesch’s predecessor, Paul Boyd, called a grand jury in 2017, but the grand jury did not serve an indictment. KFVS12 and the Southeast Missourian reported that several key witnesses, including the DNA and reconstruction experts, were not called to testify for the grand jury.

Boyd has said sometimes the grand jury offers an investigative tool to push the case forward, rather than just a mechanism to charge someone with a crime.

Prior to the grand jury being called, Walter filed probable-cause affidavits with the prosecutor.