Trial date scheduled for suspect in 2000 child-kidnapping cases

JACKSON, Mo. -- An April trial date has been set in the case of Samuel J. Farrow Jr., the 23-year-old man accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing two young girls.

Circuit Judge John Grimm set the bench trial Monday for April 9-11 at the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse. Grimm will preside over the trial.

Farrow, who is from Jackson, will face 16 felony crimes involving abductions of a 4-year-old girl and a 7-year-old girl in November and July 2000. Thirteen of the 16 charges against Farrow carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Farrow is alleged to have kidnapped both girls, who are not related, from the same mobile home in Scott City, Mo. The mobile home had been rented by two different families. Investigators have said the two girls were abducted through the same bedroom window.

Farrow appeared in court Monday wearing leg shackles and a Mississippi County Jail jumpsuit. Farrow has been in custody since last November and is being held on $1 million bond.

In August, Farrow's lawyer, Albert Lowes, entered a plea of not guilty to the charges by reason of mental defect, though Lowes' comments after the appearance suggested he is leaving nothing to chance.

Mental fitness

"We're not going to concede in court that he did it," Lowes said. "We're going to argue that he didn't do it, but that if he did do it he didn't know what he was doing. He's not mentally right in our opinion."

Farrow completed a mental evaluation through the Missouri Department of Mental Health at the request of Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle. He then had mental evaluations performed by a Kansas City psychiatrist hired by the defense.

Both examinations were to determine whether Farrow can assist in his own defense in court and whether he was mentally fit at the time of the crimes.

Lowes said that his psychiatrist says Farrow can't discern right from wrong.

"We had a psychiatrist that says he doesn't have sufficient mental capacity to know the difference between right and wrong," Lowes said.

Lowes acknowledges that the state's psychiatrist will testify to the contrary.

"The state's psychiatrist says he has mental problems, but he ain't quite bad enough," Lowes said.

A pretrial conference will be held in March.