Morehouse woman sentenced to life in prison for grandmother's death

NEW MADRID, Mo. — A Morehouse, Missouri, woman who was found guilty of murdering her grandmother will spend the rest of her life in prison.

On Wednesday, Sept. 6, Ashley M. Riggins, 37, was sentenced to life without parole for a first-degree murder charge; 30 years for armed criminal action; 10 years each for two counts of abuse or neglect of a child — with all of those sentences to run consecutively — and seven years each for abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence, which are to run concurrently, according to online court records.

Riggins was convicted April 20 for the Aug. 3, 2020, stabbing death of 74-year-old Dottie Lutes. The case was heard without a jury before Circuit Judge Ed Reeves.

New Madrid County (Missouri) Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Lawson, who was assisted in the case by New Madrid County assistant prosecuting attorney Austin Crowe, called eight witnesses in the trial. Riggins’ attorneys T.J. Houck and Kayla McKenzie did not call any witnesses and Riggins exercised her right to remain silent and not testify.

On Aug. 3, 2020, law enforcement officers were notified Lutes was missing. After obtaining a search warrant to enter Lutes’ residence, officers found blood in her bedroom, drag marks with blood leading from the bedroom to the exit of the residence and a large bloody kitchen knife with a broken handle.

Officers located Riggins and her boyfriend, Rayshand Lyons, in Charleston, Missouri, where they were taken into custody.

Lyons would later tell police the couple had planned to rob Lutes and steal her gun. Lyons stated Riggins woke Lutes, and they both stabbed her. When Lutes fought back and called for help, Lyons said he knocked Lutes to the floor where Riggins continued to stab her.

The couple then rolled the woman into some carpet and put the woman in the car. At that time, Lyons said Lutes’ abdomen was still moving and he heard her exhaling.

He said he and Riggins drove to Charleston where they left Lutes’ body in a field. The body was then located by law enforcement.

Lawson described Lutes’ murder as brutal and tragic.

“Not only did this defendant murder her own grandmother, she forced one of her children to watch, and she forced another one of her children to help carry their great-grandmother’s body out of the house. Although the trial is over, they will have to live with this trauma for the rest of their lives,” he said.

On March 17 in Pemiscot County, Missouri, Lyons pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with Lutes’ death and to escape from confinement with a deadly weapon for breaking out of the Mississippi County jail in November 2020. He received the maximum possible sentence of 30 years on the charge of second-degree murder and a 20-year sentence on the escape charge with the sentences to run consecutively.