New questions in 1992 murder case

Editor's note: In the beginning of 2006, Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter reopened a case resolved by Missouri courts in 1994. Unconvinced the right man was sent to prison for the murder of a Benton, Mo., college student named Angela Mischelle Lawless, Walter has been investigating old evidence. In less than two months, a judge will determine whether there is enough evidence to retry the case. This is the first of three stories detailing old and new aspects of the case.

By Bridget DiCosmo

Southeast Missourian

As he walks toward a private meeting room at the Jefferson City Correctional Center, Joshua C. Kezer is told only that some police officers are waiting. He has just been pulled from a visit with two of his closest friends. As he is escorted to meet the waiting officers, he wonders what they could want from him.

He hasn't seen a cop in 12 years.

Waiting for him are three men.

Kezer's blue eyes only focus on one.

The man, broad-shouldered, is wearing a white-collared uniform with a narrow black tie. Kezer's eyes quickly lock on a gleaming five-point star pinned to the man's chest.

Flanking him is another stranger, younger, huskier, dressed in plain clothes, with an animated, friendly expression, and Roy Moore, an officer Kezer recognizes because he testified in his defense.

"My name's Rick Walter," the first man says. "And this is Branden Caid."

Walter introduces himself as the Scott County sheriff, a man who has been indirectly connected to Kezer since 1992. Caid, Walter explains, is a detective working with the sheriff's department on a few cases.

Kezer doesn't care much about the names. Not in this place. It's the badge he's concerned about.

"Do you trust law enforcement?" the man named Walter says.

"I don't trust Scott County sheriffs," Kezer responds, jaw clenched.

Walter detects Kezer's frustrated tone, and is not surprised by it. He nods.

Twelve years before this conversation, a Missouri court convicted Kezer of murdering Angela Mischelle Lawless. Walter was at the prison to let Kezer know he isn't convinced Kezer did it. In a rare move, Walter has decided to reopen a closed case.

Walter promises Kezer he'll uncover the truth.

And, in turn, Kezer makes a vow as well. If Walter does uncover the truth, he says, he'll shake his hand. Badge or no badge.

Now, 15 months after that meeting and 27 months into the new investigation, Walter and Caid question every piece of physical evidence and every bit of testimony that convicted Kezer. Nothing they've found connects Kezer to the woman whose murder sent him to a maximum-security prison for 60 years. Other suspects, motives and evidence have surfaced.

On June 9, Circuit Judge Richard Callahan will hear evidence in a Cole County courtroom on whether Kezer, now 33, was wrongfully convicted.

Murder in Benton

Well after midnight, on Nov. 8, 1992, Walter, then a reserve officer with the Scott County Sheriff's Department, was embroiled in paperwork. He was sifting through applications and running a background check on a potential new reserve deputy.

A married couple walked into the office. From behind the glass, they explained that as they pulled off Interstate 55 on their way home, they noticed a car parked at the top of northbound off ramp near Benton.

The headlights were on, and the engine was still running.

They guessed that someone probably had too much to drink and may have passed out in the driver's seat.

"Sure, I'll go check it out on my way home," said Walter, getting up from the desk. A Benton city officer, Moore, accompanied him.

Walter didn't have access to a patrol vehicle that night. He was driving his wife's car along Highway 77.

Walter pulled up and parked in front of the six-year-old burgundy Buick Somerset. Its lights and humming motor pierced the deserted area, exhaust fumes mingling with the fog that moved in.

As Walter walked toward the vehicle, he saw right away that someone was slumped over the center console from the driver's seat.

Moore popped the door open with two fingers carefully placed under the door handle. The two men shouted a few times, trying to rouse the person. No response.

Shining his light into the car, Walter was half-convinced the couple was right — the driver was drunk and asleep.

Until he saw the blood. It was everywhere.

Walter immediately radioed dispatch.

Sprawled across the crimson interior of the Buick, the girl's long, wavy auburn hair looked black. Her legs rested primly under her on the seat, as if braced against the door. She wore a bright blue shirt with white lettering, the bottom rolled up, and stonewashed jeans with the fly unbuttoned. Bits of grass still clung to her navy socks. A pair of light brown moccasins, so small they looked like children' shoes, were neatly tucked on the floorboard under the steering column, off to the side and out of the way.

Blood from two blunt force trauma wounds on her head covered her face. When they took a closer look, Walter noticed a spent shell casing. That was when he realized she had been shot.

The casing had rolled down the seat and lay nestled against the curve of her diminutive frame.

As Walter and Moore waited for paramedics, a small white car, like a small station wagon or hatchback, pulled up, and a Hispanic-looking man, appearing to be in his late 20s, stepped out. In broken English he asked where he could get some gas. Moore explained nothing nearby was open, and the man would have to go north about 10 miles.

A short while later, another car drove up from the direction of Benton, past Walter and Moore, turning down the outer road and then back as if surveying the scene. As a young man got out and approached, Moore met him halfway.

"Can I help you?" Moore asked.

"Is she dead?" the man asked.

"What are you talking about?" Moore asked.

"The girl. I'm the one that found the girl," he said.

Moore instructed him to stay where he was and contacted the jailer at the sheriff's department.

At that point, Moore learned a local man the jailer recognized as one of the "Abbott twins" had walked into the sheriff's office and announced that he found a white female in a vehicle down by the Benton exit. There was blood everywhere, and she had been shot, he had reported. At first, Abbott told the jailer, he thought the girl was drunk. He leaned through the window, which he said was rolled down, and grabbed the girl by the waist, trying to sit her up, when he saw the blood, he said. Before he left the sheriff's department, he gave his name as "Matt."

The statement nagged Walter for the next 15 years. Walter remembered when he came upon the scene, there was too much blood from other wounds to determine if she had been shot or stabbed or beaten. He found it odd that a person would immediately know that the woman had been shot. He also speculated that if someone would have been able to squeeze through the partly opened window, that person would have likely broken the glass.

Moore noticed a faint trace of alcohol on Abbott's breath as they spoke that night, but he didn't slur his speech or appear disoriented. He spoke clearly, but Moore observed he seemed nervous, fidgety and overexcited, understandable given the circumstances.

Abbott left the scene before other police and first responders arrived, giving Moore his word he would return later that day so a deputy could take his fingerprints for elimination purposes.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol was summoned to collect evidence. Technicians photographed the bloody trail leading from the driver's side door, around the front of the Buick, over the guardrail and down a grassy embankment. Trampled, blood-stained grass near the bottom of the embankment indicated Lawless struggled there with her attacker or attackers.

A thin frost settled over the car as officers continued to process the crime scene.

There were distinct claw marks on her right hand; flesh under her fingernails further confirmed that she had not died without a fight.

Police dug one bullet from the top of the passenger seat where it had lodged itself in the dark red fabric. Blood splatters and ballistics indicated the girl had been shot three times while in her car — in the back, face and back of her head with a .380-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

She was identified as Angela Mischelle Lawless, a freshman nursing student at Southeast Missouri State University. She was proficient in martial arts, and her friends described her as "bubbly, friendly and always ready with a smile." An active member of the Baptist Student Union, she had been a candy striper at Saint Francis Medical Center. She worked as a waitress at Shoney's in Sikeston, Mo. Friends said she wanted a nursing degree so she could help others.

The afternoon before she was killed, her father had taken her to a farm auction, where she picked up some steals on trinkets and knickknacks.

Spoke to Abbott again

On Nov. 9, 1992, Marvin Lawless wrapped red silk flowers around the stop sign near the spot where his daughter fought for her life.

That same day, police again spoke with the man who was the first to find Lawless' body, only this time, he said he was Mark, not Matt. Mark Abbott described seeing the rings on Lawless' hand, and said it the only way he could tell it was a woman. Several rings were found in the console — but none on her hand — when police arrived at the scene.

At that point, Mark Abbott revealed to deputy Tom Beardslee that as his truck approached the exit of the highway, he saw a man, who looked like a hitchhiker, wearing a gray sweat shirt and light-colored jeans, jump off into the ditch alongside Lawless' Buick.

A half-hour later, Mark Abbott gave a more detailed statement to another deputy. In this version, he found Lawless in her car and headed straight for a pay phone at the Cut-Mart, a small convenience store just west of the Benton overpass. The store was closed, he told police, but he dialed 911 from the pay phone. As he was doing so, a small white car rolled up and a man with a dark complexion asked for a ride, claiming he was out of fuel.

The deputy pressed Mark Abbott for further details of the man's appearance, such as weight, age, whether he had an accent, but all he said was that he saw a man with dark skin driving a small white car. In another statement to police, Mark Abbott said the car's interior was so dark, it was difficult to tell how many people were inside, but it could have been as many as six.

Mark Abbott was scared and told the man "screw you." He then jumped back in his black Chevy S-10 pickup and drove off into the night, straight to the sheriff's department.

The trail quickly turned cold. Officers from both the highway patrol and the Scott County Sheriff's Department interviewed hundreds of people, many two or three times. Rumor swirled through Benton, but leads fizzled as officers checked into them.

Sheriff Bill Ferrell and his investigators began to feel frustrated with the case.

The department identified people of interest. Some emerged as stronger suspects than others, but a month into the investigation, deputies still had not ferreted out any plausible motives, Ferrell said at the time.

Marvin Lawless and his family prayed daily their little girl's killer would be found and brought to justice. Friends of the Lawless family established a reward fund.

Ten days after Lawless died, Mark Abbott again spoke to police. This time, he went to the headquarters of the Scott City Police Department instead of the sheriff's department. He said he chose Scott City because Ferrell wanted him to take a polygraph test and a deputy had accused him of the crime.

Mark Abbott spoke with Lt. Bobby Wooten of the Scott City Police Department and recounted walking up to the burgundy Buick on Nov. 8, finding the window rolled down all the way, and reaching into the car. At this point, the victim was still alive and gurgling, he said, according to documents.

He also described making the 911 call from Cut-Mart and meeting a man who'd run out of gas and needed a ride. He'd seen the man earlier that night at a party in Sikeston, he said. He gave police a name on that night 10 days following the crime.

But it wasn't Joshua Kezer.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245

Coming Monday: The investigation focuses on Kezer. When he's extradited from Illinois on an assault charge, he is suddenly arrested for the murder of Mischelle Lawless. Read about the evidence Ken Hulshof, who helped try the case, presented at trial.