Man resentenced in '98 killing to spend life in prison

ST. LOUIS -- A Missouri killer whose death sentences were overturned by a federal appeals court has been sentenced to life behind bars without parole in one of the cases.

Willie Simmons, 38, was resentenced Friday in St. Louis Circuit Court in the January 1988 strangling of Leanora McClendon, 20. Her body was found in her apartment bathtub.

In 1994, jurors convicted Simmons of first-degree murder in McClendon's death, and he was sentenced to death.

Last year, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction but ordered the state to either have a new sentencing hearing for Simmons or give him life without parole.

Appellate judges had found that jurors were never told how badly Simmons had been beaten as a child.

Until he was 17, Simmons was beaten so badly by his mother that he was left with welts and bruises, and he was so scared of being beaten he would urinate on himself before the beatings, the court said.

"In our view, had this evidence been presented, there is a reasonable probability that at least one of the jurors would have voted against the imposition of the death penalty," the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

Still undecided is whether Simmons must be resentenced for strangling Cheri Johnson in 1987 in her downtown St. Louis apartment. His death sentence in that killing also was overturned on appeal.

Simmons was convicted of both killings during separate trials.