Lawless murder timeline: Following Mark Abbott, Matt Abbott and Kevin Williams

The events below come from pretrial depositions in the Mischelle Lawless murder. In some cases, information changed from original interviews and police. The events below are essentially what Josh Kezer's defense knew before trial.

Evening, Nov. 7, 1992

7 p.m. -- midnight: Mischelle Lawless cruises Sikeston with friends. At some point, she meets and talkswith Leon Lamb, a person whom she had seriously dated for a while, but at the time had been off-and-on again, according to his testimony. She asks Lamb how his martial arts tournament went (she was halfway to a black belt herself). Around midnight, she drops off a friend at her house and tells her friend she was going home, but she does not.

Around 11 p.m.

Mark Abbott and Kevin Williams are at a Sikeston bar with Heather Pierce and her mother Glenna Pierce, according to their court testimony. Abbott testifies he was at the bar that night, and drove an S-10 pickup truck. (Kevin Williams claims he was at a party in Commerce, Missouri, according to his testimony and that of his ex-wife, Terri Williams. Terri Williams now says that he left the party early, and that she drove home with her mother-in-law that night)

Angela Mischelle Lawless

Midnight

Around midnight, Lawless arrives at Lamb's house, according to his testimony. They have sex, and she leaves around 1 a.m. Lamb says she told him she is going home.

Around 1 a.m. or 1:30 a.m.

Heather and Glenna Pierce leave the bar to head to their Cape Girardeau home.

This is also about the time Kevin Williams says he left the party with his then-wife Terri Williams in Commerce at a party hosted by Carl Howell, who owned Howell Trucking, who Williams said he was working for at the time. Williams said he did not see or talk to Mark Abbott on the night of the murder.

Terri Williams, wife of Kevin Williams, testifies Dec. 2, 2008 that her husband was with her at a party the night Lawless was killed. (Elizabeth Dodd)

Shortly before 1:25

Jerry and Ruth Householder pull up beside a car at the Benton interchange. Ruth Householder is driving. They pull up beside the car. Jerry offers to stop and get out and check the car, but Ruth Householder says not to. The headlights are on, the dome light is on. They are not sure anyone is in the car. They see no one else around. They travel toward the sheriff's office in Benton to report a stranded car.

Mark Abbott testified he is traveling north on I-55 and takes the exit at Benton on his way home because he wants to avoid driving through Scott City, for fear of being pulled over. He was driving without a license from previous DWIs. He testified he looks up and sees "a guy jump off the side of the ditch. He was way off. ..." He describes the man in a gray sweatshirt and light pants. He notices the car and pulls up behind it. He says the lights in the car are on. He says he sees her slumped at the wheel, so he jumps out of the truck. He testifies he reaches all the way through the window, which he says is rolled all the way down, and picks her up, grabbing her by the waist (he would later say he only touched her shoulder). Abbott says Lawless gargles. He says Lawless is sitting in the driver's seat and leaning over in the passenger seat. Abbott in his pretrial deposition, says he goes to a telephone at a closed gas station to try to call 911, but it does not work. He says a man pulls up in a white car. He describes a Hispanic person in a leather jacket who says he is out of fuel.

1:25 a.m., Nov. 8, 1992

The Householders arrive at the sheriff's office. Jailer Wes Drury, currently the sheriff, takes the information. Chief reserve officer Rick Walter, and Benton Missouri officer Roy Moore, who were at the jail at the time at the end of their shifts, go check it out. **

In this drone view looking south, Highway 77 is seen in foreground with the northbound off-ramp of Interstate 55, on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 east of Benton, Missouri.Fred Lynch

1:29 a.m.:

Walter, later elected as sheriff and who reopened the case in 2006 after the wrongful conviction of Josh Kezer, calls dispatch for medical assistance, needing an ambulance. A woman in the car is said to be "unresponsive." The lights are on in the car and no one is around it. The car is running. He notices the window halfway down. He reaches in and turns off the engine.

As the call comes in, a man, believed at the time to be Matt Abbott (Mark Abbott's twin) arrives at the sheriff's office. The man who is thought to be Matt Abbott tells Drury there is a car at the exit ramp, that she's been shot and that she's dead (according to Drury's deposition) James Newman, handling dispatch at the jail, describes the man thought to be Matt Abbott as "excited" and "shook up." Neither Newman nor Drury write down the time Abbott comes in as they are both on the phone regarding the situation. Drury sees no blood on Abbott. Drury would describe the Abbott twin as wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with a design on the front. In his report, Drury would write, "I understood Mr. Abbott to give me his name as Matt." Drury would later write in his report that it was Mark Abbott. Drury would say "I heard him say Matt when he left the sheriff's office." Drury does not hold Abbott for questioning. Matt Abbott would later deny reporting the crime. Mark would become the star witness in the case, later identifying Josh Kezer, who would eventually be exonerated. Mark Abbott would later testify it was he who reported the crime and not his brother.

Moore reports the window on the driver's side is about 5 to 7 inches down. He would later say a person couldn't get his head and shoulders through it. The victim is not wearing rings, but is in her sock feet. Her shoes are found elsewhere in the car. Her socks have grass and weeds on the bottoms. Officers observe drops of blood outside the vehicle.

1:42:

First responder Larry Ray arrives at the scene. He checks Lawless for a pulse, and gets none. He finds her body is a bit warm, clammy. He sees no rings on her fingers. About 10 minutes after his arrival, highway patrol officers arrive.

Unknown time:

At the scene, after first responders and officers arrive, Moore observes a white car, a hatchback or station wagon, coming from the west. It goes down an outer road near the mobile home trailer sales lot and turns around and comes back "real slow." Moore stops the car. The driver speaks Spanish, and asks where he might go and get some gas. He does not write down a license plate number.

Minutes later:

Moore says a man walks up to the scene, saying he was the person who first found the body. The man tells Moore he'd talked to Drury. Moore calls Drury, who tells Moore that the man had come in. Moore asks Drury if he wants the man to return to the sheriff's office, but Drury says no. "He advised me just to tell him to go home, that they had all the information, that they would need to get in contact with him the next day," according to a deposition transcript. Later, Moore could not say whether it was Mark or Matt Abbott who arrived at the scene. Moore said the man is wearing a light jacket, possibly a windbreaker and jeans. He described the man as having a white shirt. He smells alcohol. Moore says the man at the scene drives north on the interstate when leaving. Moore says he was driving a car, like a Monte Carlo or Buick. (Mark Abbott testified he was driving an S-10 pickup truck when came upon the scene and reported the crime to the sheriff's department.)

Chief Deputy of Scott County Tom Beardslee testifies about his interview with Mark Abbott, the eyewitness who discovered Lawless body. (Elizabeth Dodd)

2 a.m.

The coroner arrives at the scene.

Heather and Glenna Pierce arrive at their Cape Girardeau home.

Shortly after 2 a.m.

Mark Abbott arrives at Heather Pierce's house in his S-10. Wearing a blue, striped shirt and jeans, he tells her, according to her testimony, "I think I just touched a dead girl. I might have blood on my hands. Where is a mirror? Where is the light? Where is the bathroom?" He is shaking. He directs her to the bathroom. He tells her he had stopped at the Benton exit, and saw a girl slumped over in the seat. He said he saw something what looked like blood or holes in the back of her neck and when he lifted her up, he saw more blood and he was frightened and let her go. He tells her he backtracked, went to a friend's house or somebody who could call and let the police know what he had found. She testifies later that Mark Abbott said he'd gone back to the vicinity to see whether the policemen were there.

James Chambers, a Scott County deputy, arrives at the scene to photograph the evidence. He is one of, if not the last, law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene. He observes that the window is all the way down. His photos show Lawless is not wearing rings.

3:30 a.m.

Mark Abbott leaves Heather Pierce's house.

4:30 a.m.

The vehicle and body are removed from the scene. Investigation continues through daylight. Investigators collect evidence and search for a weapon.

8:21 a.m.

Matt Abbott receives a collect phone call. When asked later who it was, he says he cannot remember.

9:24 a.m.

Tom Beardslee of the Scott County Sheriff's department goes to Mark Abbott's house to interview him, but he is not there. *

10:15 a.m.

Beardslee returns at Abbott's house and he is not there for interview

12:45 p.m.

Beardslee and Drury arrive at Abbott's house for an interview. In the interview, Abbott does not mention stopping at a pay phone, nor about going back to the scene. He tells Beardslee that Lawless' window was all the way down. He tells Beardslee that Lawless was wearing a ring on her finger. Abbott says Lawless was cold when he pulled her up. He tells Drury he headed home after checking her. "How far did you go before you went back?," Drury asks. "I basically went straight there. I think I went right there. I was headed home." And then he tells them he returned to the police station. Drury identifies Mark Abbott as being the person who was at the sheriff's office the night before.

November 9, 10 p.m.

Mark Abbott is pulled over by Scott City officer John Blakely, according to testimony by county deputy James Chambers. Abbott is pulling a trailer with no plates. He tells Blakely he's moving some furniture for a state highway patrolman's daughter, from Sikeston to Cape Girardeau. Blakely could not verify this. There was no other mention of the traffic stop. **

*Terri Williams, Kevin Williams' ex-wife, recently told the Southeast Missourian that Mark Abbott came to visit Kevin Williams the morning after the murder. She said they were going to the mobile home sales lot to look for clues. Witnesses testified in court that Kevin Williams told them that the murder started at the trailer home sales lot. Mark Abbott told a police officer while he was in prison on federal drug charges that he was with Williams on the night of the murder and that Williams is the person who killed Lawless.

According to interviews with the Southeast Missourian in 2009 and 2015, hours after the early-morning murder, passer-by Dallas Butler he tells authorities he saw a woman slumped over the steering wheel of a car and a man standing outside the vehicle around the time of the crime.