THREE-DAY MANHUNT YIELDS SUSPECT IN PATROLMAN'S DEATH

Trooper James M. Froemsdorf stopped the car driven by Jerome Mallett for speeding at mile marker 134 north of Perryville on Interstate 55.

The traffic stop came about 6 o'clock on a Saturday night, March 2, 1985.

A check revealed that Mallett, of St. Louis and Dallas, Texas, was wanted in Texas. Mallett was handcuffed and placed in the front seat of the patrol car.

During questioning by Froemsdorf, Mallett slipped a hand out of the cuffs, obtained the trooper's weapon and shot Froemsdorf three times.

The shooting was discovered a few minutes later, touching off a massive manhunt that was to last three days before Mallett was captured at 7 p.m. March 6, near a motel in the Desloge area.

Roadblocks were established, helicopters and dogs were used in the search, which included house-to-house searches in some areas.

Mallett, who was already the subject of two felony warrants, for armed robbery and violation of parole in Texas, now had a new charge -- a first-degree murder warrant had been issued shortly after the shooting of Froemsdorf.

The shooting of Froemsdorf shocked the Cape Girardeau-Perryville area. Froemsdorf, a native of Cape Girardeau and nine-year veteran of the Missouri Highway Patrol, had lived in Perryville eight years with his family -- wife, Sarah (Gilbert), and three daughters, Teri, Kim and Amy Froemsdorf.

When services were held -- the day before Mallott was captured -- in Cape Girardeau, hundreds of law enforcements officers from throughout the nation, were in attendance.

Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft and numerous friends were among the mourners.

The funeral was one of the largest ever held in Cape Girardeau.

Mallett was eventually arrested, without resistance.

Mallett later confessed to the killing, prosecutors said. The case was moved to Schuyler County on a change of venue. He was convicted in January 1986 of first-degree murder, and in March 1986, the circuit judge in the case sentenced him to death.

Mallett is one of 86 inmates on Missouri's death row. He has remained on death row almost 13 years. He has been appealing ever since, first through the state court system and then the federal courts.

Mallett, who is black, argued in his latest appeal that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the state trial court transferred his case to a county without black residents and the jury considered "depravity of mind" in imposing the death sentence.

Mallett, who in the state prison at Potosi, also argued that he was deprived of his constitutional rights to an impartial and disinterested trial judge and effective legal representation.

The federal appeals judges rejected all of Mallett's arguments. The judges said there is no constitutional requirement that a case be transferred to a county with black residents. The judges said there was no racial discrimination in the selection of the jury.

Last November, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis affirmed Mallett's conviction and death sentence for the 1985 murder of Froemsdorf.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said Mallett could ask that all of the 8th Circuit appellate judges review the case.

Mallett's next step would be to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. If the high court turns down Mallett's request, Nixon said his office would ask the Missouri Supreme Court to set an execution date.

It could be next summer before all of the appellate procedures have been exhausted, said a spokesman of the attorney general's office recently.