Case Facts: On July 8, 1987, Charles Taylor was supposed to appear in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to testify against Charles Shurn, whom authorities considered an area drug dealer. It never happened.

On the morning of July 6, two men confronted Taylor, 48, outside his home in the Mansion Hills Condominiums in Normandy, a St. Louis suburb; chased him across a putting green and shot him. Witnesses said the pair got into a car but the car stopped and one of its occupants got out and shot Taylor again. The victim was shot six times in the head and once each in the stomach and arm.

Police caught one man, Daryl Shurn, nearby and a second suspect, William Weaver, running in neighboring Pasadena Hills, about a mile from Taylor’s murder. Daryl Shurn is Charles Shurn’s brother. Daryl Shurn is serving a life sentence after his death penalty conviction was set aside.

Authorities said Weaver was a hitman hired by the Shurns to silence a federal witness. Weaver claimed he was out jogging and exercising the morning of his arrest. He was shoeless. Tennis shoes were found at the crime scene.

Case facts courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Missouri Supreme Court Case Number SC83745

Kenneth Baumruk was sentenced to death, again, and returned to the Potosi Correctional Center at 5:00 p.m. on March 19, 2007.

Case Facts: In May 1992, Kenneth Baumruk came to the St. Louis County courthouse for a hearing in his divorce case. At the time, the courthouse did not have metal detectors in place, and Baumruk was able to bring into the courtroom two loaded .38-caliber guns that he had purchased in the state of Washington, where he was living at the time. At the same time, a security meeting was occurring elsewhere in the courthouse.

While his wife, Mary, was testifying that she wished to waive a conflict of interest involving her attorney, Baumruk stood and shot her in the neck. He then shot Pollard in the chest and his own attorney, Garry Seltzer, in the chest and back. He then put a gun near his wife’s head and shot her again, killing her. He next shot at the judge, who fled through the door behind the bench.

By the time Baumruk was subdued, he had shot nine people, including a bailiff and security guard, in various parts of the courthouse.

Baumruk was shot nine times, including two shots to his head. As he was being handcuffed, he asked two police officers if he had killed his wife. Later, in the emergency room, he told a doctor he had shot Mary because of the divorce. After the shooting, which received much media attention, the county paid to double the number of security guards at the courthouse and to install metal detectors there.

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Hand down from Supreme Court of Missouri: SC88497, State of Missouri, Respondent, vs. Kenneth Baumruk, an appeal from St. Charles County that was argued Wednesday morning, April 30, 2008, and was resubmitted on briefs after additional briefing on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008.

Overview: A man challenges, on direct appeal, his conviction for first-degree murder and his death sentence for killing his wife during a 1992 hearing in a dissolution proceeding. In a 6-0 decision written by Judge Patricia Breckenridge, the Supreme Court of Missouri affirms the man’s conviction and sentence. Substantial evidence supports the trial court’s findings that the man was competent to stand trial but not able to represent himself. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in using jurors from the county where the case was transferred after a change of venue or in preventing defense counsel from telling potential jurors the specific number of individuals at whom the defendant shot. The trial court did not commit plain error in failing to strike, on its own motion, a certain juror; in allowing a psychiatric expert to rely on a particular conversation as one basis for his conclusion; or in failing to intervene, on its own motion, during the penalty phase closing arguments when the prosecutor made certain statements. Further, the evidence shows the imposition of the death sentence here did not result from passion, prejudice or other arbitrary factor; supports the jury’s findings of 10 statutory factors in aggravation of punishment; and that the sentence is not excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases.

Case Facts: On August 11, 1998, Williams drove his grandfather’s Buick LeSabre to a bus stop and caught a bus to University City. Once there, he began looking for a house to break into. Williams came across the home of Felicia Gayle. He knocked on the front door but no one answered. Williams then knocked out a window pane near the door, reached in, unlocked the door, and entered Gayle’s home. He went to the second floor and heard water running in the shower. It was Gayle. Williams went back downstairs, rummaged through the kitchen, found a large butcher knife, and waited.

Gayle left the shower and called out, asking if anyone was there. She came down the stairs. Williams attacked, stabbing and cutting Gayle forty-three times, inflicting seven fatal wounds. Afterwards, Williams went to an upstairs bathroom and washed off. He took a jacket and put it on to conceal the blood on his shirt. Before leaving, Williams placed Gayle’s purse and her husband’s laptop computer and black carrying case in his backpack. The purse contained, among other things, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch ruler and a calculator. Williams left out the front door and caught a bus back to the Buick.

After returning to the car, Williams picked up his girlfriend, Laura Asaro. Asaro noticed that, despite the summer heat, Williams was wearing a jacket. When he removed the jacket, Asaro noticed that Williams’ shirt was bloody and that he had scratches on his neck. Williams claimed he had been in a fight. Later in the day, Williams put his bloody clothes in his backpack and threw them into a sewer drain, claiming he no longer wanted them.

Asaro also saw a laptop computer in the car. A day or two after the murder, Williams sold the laptop to Glenn Roberts.

The next day, Asaro went to retrieve some clothes from the trunk of the car. Williams did not want her to look in the trunk and tried to push her away. Before he could, Asaro snatched a purse from the trunk. She looked inside and found Gayle’s Missouri state identification card and a black coin purse. Asaro demanded that Williams explain why he had Gayle’s purse. Williams then confessed that the purse belonged to a woman he had killed. He explained in detail how he went into the kitchen, found a butcher knife, and waited for the woman to get out of the shower. He further explained that when the woman came downstairs from the shower, he stabbed her in the arm and then put his hand over her mouth and stabbed her in the neck, twisting the knife as he went. After relaying the details of the murder, Williams grabbed Asaro by the throat and threatened to kill her, her children and her mother if she told anyone.

On August 31, 1998, Williams was arrested on unrelated charges and incarcerated at the St. Louis City workhouse. From April until June 1999, Williams shared a room with Henry Cole. One evening in May, Cole and Williams were watching television and saw a news report about Gayle’s murder. Shortly after the news report, Williams told Cole that he had committed the crime. Over the next few weeks, Cole and Williams had several conversations about the murder. As he had done with Laura Asaro, Williams went into considerable detail about how he broke into the house and killed Gayle.

After Cole was released from jail in June 1999, he went to the University City police and told them about Williams’ involvement in Gayle’s murder. He reported details of the crime that had never been publicly reported.

In November of 1999, University City police approached Asaro to speak with her about the murder. Asaro told the police that Williams admitted to her that he had killed Gayle. The next day, the police searched the Buick LeSabre and found the Post-Dispatch ruler and calculator belonging to Gayle. The police also recovered the laptop computer from Glenn Roberts. The laptop was identified as the one stolen from Gayle’s residence.

Williams was tried for Gayle’s murder and convicted.

Missouri Supreme Court Case Number: SC86689

Case Facts: A six-year-old girl disappeared in July 2002 from her Valley Park home after Johnny Johnson stayed the night in the home. That morning, Johnson awoke to find the girl standing near the couch on which he had been sleeping. He took the girl, still in her nightgown, to an abandoned glass factory nearby that is surrounded by wooded areas and a series of trails. He took the girl into a pit with walls more than 6 feet high, exposed himself, tore off the girl’s underwear and forced her to the ground. He attempted to rape her and then hit her in the head with a brick multiple times. Eventually, he knocked her to the ground and fractured the right side of her skull. Because she still was moving, Johnson lifted a basketball-sized boulder and brought it down on the girl’s head and neck. She stopped breathing soon after. Johnson buried the girl with rocks, leaves and debris from the pit, then went to the nearby Meramec River to wash blood and other evidence from his body. Police found Johnson and took him to the police station, where he was identified by a witness who had seen him carrying the girl earlier in the morning. He signed a waiver form after being advised of his rights and told police he wanted to make a statement.

After several hours of denying seeing or being with the girl that morning, Johnson ultimately told police the girl was in the old glass factory and that she had died in an accident. Before police were able to find the girl’s body, a private citizen who had joined the search for the girl chanced upon her body in the pit. A detective who investigated the scene told Johnson he did not believe the girl’s death was an accident. Johnson told the detective that he had exposed himself to the girl and had pulled down her underwear and killed her only after they both began “freaking out.” He did not admit that he intended to take the girl, rape her or kill her before entering the pit. Around 11:30 that night, while Johnson was awaiting booking, he began discussing the Bible and eternal salvation with another police detective. Johnson admitted he had not been completely honest to that point, returned to police headquarters, again waived his rights, and made verbal and audiotaped statements in which he admitted that he intended to take the girl to have sex with her and then kill her. An autopsy showed the girl died from blunt force injuries to her head.

At trial, Johnson did not deny killing the girl but disputed that he deliberated before doing so. He also presented a diminished capacity defense asserting that he could not deliberate because of schizo-affective disorder that caused command hallucinations telling him to rape and kill the girl. The jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, kidnapping and attempted forcible rape. It recommended a sentence of death for the murder conviction, finding all three statutory aggravating factors presented by the state. It recommended life sentences for the remaining convictions. In accord with the jury’s recommendations, the court sentenced Johnson to death for the murder and, as a persistent offender, to consecutive life sentences for the other crimes.

This summary is not part of the opinion of the Court (11/7/06). It has been prepared by the Communications Counsel for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court and should not be quoted or cited. The opinion of the Court, which may be quoted, follows the summary.

Case Facts: In December 2002, Earl Forrest, who had been drinking, went to Harriet Smith’s home and demanded that she fulfill her part of a bargain to buy a lawn mower and a mobile home for Forrest in exchange for Forrest introducing her to a source for methamphetamine.

During the ensuing melee, Forrest shot a guest of Smith’s, Michael Wells, in the face, killing him. Forrest also shot Smith six times, killing her. He took $25,000 worth of methamphetamine from Smith’s home and returned to his own home, where he had a shootout with law enforcement officers. He shot and killed Deputy Joann Barnes. He also shot his girlfriend, Angela Gamblin, and Sheriff Bob Wofford, both of whom survived.

He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, and the jury found him guilty on all three counts. The jury subsequently recommended a death sentence for each of the three murders.

MO Supreme Court Opinion