Lawless cold case murder to get look from state agencies

A Scott County prosecutor said this week three law enforcement entities are providing new focus on a cold case murder.

Prosecuting Attorney Amanda Oesch released a statement Monday saying she has enlisted help from state agencies in the 1992 murder of Angela Mischelle Lawless, who was found shot to death in her vehicle near Interstate 55 at the Benton, Missouri, exit. The Southeast Missouri State University nursing student had been shot three times and had suffered a blow to the head.

Oesch said she is seeking assistance in three ways:

• Missouri State Highway Patrol Violent Crime Support Unit will help organize and digitize investigation files.

"This will be a huge step for investigators in being able to click through electronically and find each file containing a witness name or locating all of the evidence that was originally seized," Oesch said.

• State Attorney General's Office Cold Case Unit will provide an independent review of the investigation.
• State Highway Patrol Division of Drug and Crime Control will provide an independent investigator's perspective of case files and determine a plan to move forward with the investigation.

"When I took office in 2019, I pledged to do an independent review of the Lawless case file. I believe these outside agencies stepping in to assist in this case will be a huge step in the right direction for the investigation of this case," the prosecutor said.

Oesch lamented the state of the case files.

"One of the biggest obstacles as I progressed through the investigation was the lack of organization," she explained. "Where most current homicide investigations are digitized and/or organized with an index and in chronological order, this investigation had zero organization other than some binders that were made from old reports. However, those were not necessarily in chronological order."

Lawless's murder remains unsolved. A jury convicted Josh Kezer of the murder in 1994, but he was exonerated in 2009. He sued Scott County, a former sheriff and former deputy for his wrongful conviction case and won a reported $4 million settlement.