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When Anglo-Mestizo Inbreds Attack Baby Anglo-Mestizos -- The Rowan Ford Trial

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  • #16
    Family, teachers testify in Collings sentencing trial

    Family, teachers testify in Collings sentencing trial

    By Staff Reports
    Neosho Daily News
    Posted Mar 22, 2012 @ 09:46 AM


    http://www.neoshodailynews.com/news/...ntencing-trial
    http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=5484#post5484


    Christopher Collings

    Neosho, Mo. —
    Jurors in the Christopher Collings murder case heard from Rowan Ford’s family members, teachers and neighbors during the first day of testimony in the penalty phase of the trial.

    The proceedings are being held at the Phelps County Courthouse in Rolla on a change of venue from Barry County. Collings was convicted Tuesday of raping and killing the 9-year-old Stella girl in November 2007.

    Collings, as well as David Spears, Ford’s stepfather, were suspected in the 2007 rape and murder of the young Stella girl. Spears was called to testify during the guilt or innocence phase of the trial, but invoked the 5th Amendment in response to questions while on the witness stand. His trial is scheduled for November of this year.

    On Wednesday, jurors heard from Colleen Munson, Ford’s mother; Ariane Parsons, the girl’s sister; science teacher Tammy Marshall; and fourth grade teacher Todd Holt. Ford was a fourth grader at Triway Elementary in Stella.

    Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Bock told the jury it would be obvious from testimony that Ford’s family was poor, but the child was a whiz a school.

    Munson described her daughter as a girl who enjoyed playing with dolls, riding her bike, going to church and playing with her best friend, Tyler. She said Rowan also loved school, but wouldn’t ride the bus. Instead, she preferred to ride her bike.

    Munson also admitted that since her daughter’s murder, she has been under psychiatric care and hasn’t been able to have a stable lifestyle. She mentioned transferring to a different Walmart because people kept asking how she was and bringing up the case, and that she left the retail giant in 2009.

    On cross examination, the defense asked Munson if she had witnessed anything inappropriate between Collings and Rowan and she replied she had not.

    Ford’s sister, Ariane Parsons, also took the stand on Wednesday, telling jurors she had moved out in September 2007 because Collings was inappropriately touching her. She said the incidents began when she was 15, but intensified when he moved in with the family when she was 17. She said she repeatedly told her mother and David Spears about the incidents, but nothing was done. She stated, however, she did not witness any inappropriate activity involving Rowan.

    While her mother worked nights and slept days, Parsons said she made sure her little sister ate every night and had clothes for the next day.

    She described Sept. 28, 2007, as the last day she saw Rowan. That was the day she moved to Mississippi. She said she was packing a suitcase for the trip and Rowan gave her a hug and told her she loved her.

    Parsons testified since Rowan’s death, she has tried to kill herself several times.

    Also testifying was Marshall, who described Ford as a B student whose favorite color was purple. Marshall testified that Triway students planted a pink dogwood and held a balloon release the day before the girl’s funeral. She said not a single day goes by that she doesn’t think of Rowan Ford.

    Rowan’s fourth grade teacher, Holt, also testified. He mentioned Rowan’s love of reading, saying she was “a hard girl to keep out of a book,” and described her as a hard worker who wasn’t afraid to ask questions. Holt said Rowan was “the kind of student every teacher would want.”

    The defense asked jurors to consider all of the evidence in the trial before making a decision. The defense said Spears’ alleged involvement wasn’t a consideration during the first phase, but could be in this one. They stressed that the penalty phase wasn’t about punishing Spears, but about punishing Collings.

    The defense showed a chart noting Collings’ birth, foster and adoptive families, and characterized the 37-year-old as having an attachment disorder that caused him to have behavioral issues as a child. This resulted in his admission to a psychiatric hospital at the age of 15, where he was diagnosed with major depression and an explosive disorder.

    Today, jurors will hear from defense witnesses.


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    • #17
      Collings trial jury hears members of defendant’s family

      Chris Collings’ father: ‘No matter what happens, I love my son’
      Defense offers details of family’s alcoholism

      By Jeff Lehr
      Globe Staff Writer
      March 22, 2012


      http://www.joplinglobe.com/crime_and...-I-love-my-son
      http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=5486#post5486

      ROLLA, Mo. — The birth father of Chris Collings took the witness stand this morning in the penalty phase of his son’s murder trial.

      Collings, 37, Wheaton, was found guilty of first-degree murder earlier this week in connection with the November, 2007 killing of Rowan Ford, 9, Stella.

      Defense attorneys called Dale Pickett, of England, Ark., to testify in an effort to convince jurors not to give Collings the death penalty.

      The defense is offering intimate details of Collings life as mitigating circumstances in his crime.

      Much of Pickett’s testiony concerned his own alcoholism as well as that of Collings’ mother.

      The picture that emerged from his testimony was of a home life where Collings and his siblings were largely left to their own devices while their parents drank and fought.

      “She couldn’t stand me drunk and I couldn’t stand her sober,” Pickett told the court.

      He said he was arrested for shooting another man in Rogers, Ark., six months after Collings was born. He explained that he had gone after the ex-husband of Collings’ mother for “messing around” with her, but wound up shooting the wrong man. But, he told the court that man also had been having an affair with the defendant’s mother.

      The father was sent to prison and did not see Collings again until he was let out for a special visit when the boy was 6-years-old. Pickett went on to describe efforts he made to continue to have contact with his son when he got out on parole and when he was finally released after being sent back to prison for a parole violation.

      When asked about his thoughts on his son facing the death penalty, Pickett responded: “I know my son made a serious mistake, but mistakes are something everyone makes. No matter what happens I love my son. I know a man can change. Everybody can change. I have changed.”



      .
      ================
      .


      Collings trial jury hears members of defendant’s family
      Deliberation could begin after ‘life path’ laid out

      By Jeff Lehr
      news@joplinglobe.com
      March 22, 2012


      http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/x15...ndant-s-family
      http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=5486#post5486

      ROLLA, Mo. — The birth father of Chris Collings testified Thursday that he was drunk every day of the week about the time his son was born in 1975.

      Dale Pickett, of England, Ark., admitted to the jury charged with deciding if his son should receive the death penalty for the murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford that both he and Collings’ mother, Barbara, had issues with alcohol, although she was not as heavy a drinker as he.

      “She couldn’t stand me drunk, and I couldn’t stand her sober,” Pickett summed up the relationship from the witness stand.

      Members of the birth and adoptive families of Collings, 37, of Wheaton, were called by the defense to testify Thursday in the penalty phase of the defendant’s capital-murder trial in Rolla. Collings was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder for the Nov. 2, 2007, murder of the Ford girl.

      The defense is seeking to show jurors that Collings suffered from an attachment disorder that began with his birth to parents who failed to form any bonds with him as an infant.

      Pickett, a large man about 6 feet 6 inches tall like his son, acknowledged that he was arrested and eventually sent to prison for shooting another man in Rogers, Ark., when Collings was just 6 months old. He said he went after Barbara Pickett’s ex-husband “because I was tired of him messing around with my wife.”

      Pickett said he knocked on the door of a home where he thought the ex-husband was, and someone inside asked what he wanted. He said he answered: “You know what I want.”

      The door opened.

      “He fired a gun at me; I fired back,” Pickett said.

      It turned out that the man he shot wasn’t the ex-husband. It was another man, he said. But that man also had been having an affair with Barbara, he said.

      Greg Horton, a brother of the defendant, and son of Barbara and previous husband Albert Horton, told the court that he was 11 or 12 years old when Collings was born. He provided most of the care of Chris since Barbara was working more than one job at the time in addition to drinking. Not long after Pickett’s arrest in the shooting incident, Barbara beat on him for not keeping their house picked up and went after a guy who had been drinking with her with a butcher knife, Horton told the court.

      The police were called, and he and Chris and two other children in the home were removed and placed in foster homes, Horton said.

      After brief placements in two other foster homes, Chris finally wound up in the home of Clarence “Poncho” and Betty Collings, of Wheaton. His adopted sister, Robin Brattin, a daughter of the Collingses who was 14 when Chris came to live with her family, testified that there was always something not quite right about Chris.

      “Maybe he just required a little more love than he got,” Brattin said. “Maybe he required more than any of us could give him.”

      She described him as a “rambunctious” and “hyper” child who seemed to have “difficulties getting along with others.” She recalled Chris suffering fever-related seizures as a child. Trouble controlling his anger was apparent by the time he started school, she said. She told the court about a time when he threw a bicycle he received for Christmas into a farm pond.

      According to the testimony of various witnesses, the Collingses later adopted Chris, when he was 7, after losing another daughter of theirs in a traffic accident. Not long after the adoption, the couple separated, and Chris began getting shuttled back and forth between his adopted mother and father.

      In the meantime, the defendant’s birth parents made some efforts to reconnect with Chris. Brattin recalled Barbara coming to visit him. Her impression of Barbara was that of a “gruff” and “overpowering” woman who would insinuate that Betty needed to get a firmer hand on Chris. She said her mother had always tried to leave the door open to Chris’ birth parents.

      Dale Pickett visited his son in Wheaton when he was 6 years old. He had gotten out on parole and obtained permission for the visit in the company of an archbishop who had made his acquaintance through prison ministries.

      Pickett said he refused to give up his parental rights while in prison, but they were terminated without his consent. He said he reconnected with his son again nonetheless when Chris turned 18 and called him on the telephone. That began a series of stays with his father, his new wife and her daughter in Arkansas.

      “What it meant to me (was) it filled a big hole,” Pickett said.

      He said his new wife at first did not care for Chris, but that gradually changed and she now loves him like a son. He said his love for Chris endures despite alleged sexual contact of his son with his stepdaughter when she was between 11 and 14 years of age.

      Asked about the murder of the Ford girl, Pickett said he knows his son made a mistake, but everybody makes mistakes.

      “No matter what happens, I love my son,” he said. “I know a man can change. Everybody can change. I’ve changed.”

      Collings lost both his birth and adoptive mothers the same year he killed Rowan. Barbara died a few months before the murder, Betty just two weeks before. Brattin testified that the killing of the girl and the charging of her adopted brother greatly affected her entire family.

      “My father died within five months, and I do believe it was from the stress of what happened,” she said. “I feel selfish because this is nothing compared to what Rowan’s family is going through.”

      Still, she was there to testify on behalf of her adopted brother, defense attorney Charles Moreland pointed out.

      “He’s a human being,” Brattin said. “He’s part of my family. There’s consequences for what we do.”

      The final witness for the defense, Dr. Wanda Draper, a human development specialist and professor emeritus with the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, began laying out a life path of the defendant that she constructed after studying numerous records associated with the lives of the defendant and his family members and interviewing many of them.

      Draper said she believes Collings suffers from a disorganized attachment disorder that began at birth and has been reinforced by various traumatic events.

      The jury will begin deliberation once her testimony concludes and closing arguments are made in the penalty phase.


      David Spears

      Besides various family members of Chris Collings, defense attorneys on Thursday called the mother of co-defendant David Spears and a canine search specialist as witnesses in the penalty phase.

      Myrna Spears was asked about phone calls her son placed to her the night Rowan Ford was abducted from her home in Stella. She acknowledged going to the home at her son’s request about midnight and letting him leave in her Chevrolet Suburban. He never returned until the next morning, she said.

      She told law enforcement at the time that she assumed the girl was asleep in her room but never went to check on her while she waited for her son to return.

      Alicia Brown, a dog handler and trainer with a Newton County search and rescue team, testified that two of her dogs later alerted on the driver’s seat and the cargo area of the Suburban, presumably indicating the presence of the scent of human remains.

      The defense has yet to state how Spears’ alleged involvement in the crime might mitigate in their client’s case. Collings denied any involvement on Spears’ part despite Spears being the one who told investigators where the girl’s body was.


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      • #18
        Collings’ family testifies

        Collings’ family testifies

        By Staff Reports
        Neosho Daily News
        Posted Mar 23, 2012 @ 11:17 AM


        http://www.neoshodailynews.com/news/...mily-testifies
        http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=5491#post5491



        Christopher Collings

        Neosho, Mo. — On Wednesday, family and friends of Rowan Ford took the witness stand in the penalty phase of Christopher Collings’ murder trial, being held at the Phelps County Courthouse in Rolla.

        On Thursday, the family of Christopher Collings got a turn.

        Collings is accused of raping and killing 9-year-old Rowan Ford of Stella in November 2007 at his camping trailer in Wheaton, then disposing of her body in a sinkhole in eastern McDonald County. He was convicted of first-degree murder earlier this week. Now, the trial enters the penalty phase, with jurors to decide whether Collings gets life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.

        Among those taking the stand Thursday was Collings’ biological father, Dale Pickett, who said both he and Collings’ mother had alcohol problems at about the time of Collings’ birth.

        “She couldn't stand me drunk, and I couldn't stand her when I was sober,” he told the court.

        Collings’ father testified Collings’ older brother, Greg Horton, took care of his younger sibling, starting at about the age of 12. Pickett said he was arrested for shooting someone in Rogers, Ark., when Collings was young, adding he was arrested in front of Collings and his siblings. He told the court he served prison time for the offense, was released on parole, and then tried to reconnect with his family to find his parental rights were being terminated.

        Collings was placed in a foster home and was raised by Clarence “Pancho” Collings and his wife. He was reunited with Collings after his son turned 18.

        Pickett said at the time, he had a 9-year-old step-daughter at home. Although in court he described the two as being “normal kids” with the usual sibling rivalries, he later said his daughter claimed Collings had touched her inappropriately. This came out after Collings’ had been charged with Rowan Ford’s murder.

        He also testified Thursday that one of his ex-wife’s later husbands molested Christopher before he was taken from the home.

        Asked if there was anything the jury needed to hear, Pickett said “I know my son made a serious mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. I still love my son. I know my son can change. Anyone can change. I did. That's about all I know to say.”

        Horton also took the stand on Thursday, saying Collings’ mother worked several jobs at a time to help support the family. He said he began a caregiver role at the age of 5 or 6 when another brother was born.

        He said his mother would beat the children with whatever was handy. The abuse led to the children being taken out of the home.

        Collings’ adoptive brother, Randall Collings, also took the stand, saying while Collings was also talking and moving as a child, he didn’t notice any behavioral problems. He added that Christopher was the only foster child his parents adopted.

        Robin Brattin, Collings’ adoptive sister, said Collings wasn’t a bad child, “maybe he just required a little more love than what he got. Maybe he required a little more love than what any of us could give him.” She said while not perfect, her parents “did the best they could.”

        She said Collings had a temper he could not control.

        “If he got mad while he was working on something, he might take the hammer and completely destroy it,” she said.
        She said the temper problems did not get better as Collings got older.

        Testimony will resume again today as a psychiatric expert will take the stand.




        ===666===666===666===

        The Neosho Daily Douche

        All the ZOGling-Approved Shit That Sorta Fits We Print
        http://www.neoshodailynews.com/

        Comment


        • #19
          Death penalty assessed against Chris Collings in Rowan Ford murder
          Jury arrives at death penalty in 48 minutes

          By Jeff Lehr
          The Joplin Globe
          March 23, 2012


          http://www.joplinglobe.com/crime_and...an-Ford-murder
          http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=5492#post5492

          ROLLA, Mo. — Chris Collings did not appear to take it all that hard Friday night when Circuit Judge Mary Sheffield read the verdict, that the jury had decided he should pay the ultimate penalty for the murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford.

          His attorney, Charles Moreland, stood next to Collings, 37, as the death sentence was pronounced.

          The defendant seemed intently interested as jurors filed back into the courtroom with their decision at 6:17 p.m., just as he had been throughout the two-week trial in Rolla. Still, his face betrayed little of what he might have been thinking in reaction.

          If anything, he seemed prepared for the outcome.

          A jury of seven women and five men chosen in distant Platte County and sequestered to hear the Barry County case required just 48 minutes of deliberation in the penalty phase after taking about four hours Tuesday night to find Collings guilty of first-degree murder.

          The judge and bailiff ordered the courtroom and courthouse cleared after the reading of the verdict, and jurors were not immediately available for comment. But, outside the courthouse, Clint Clark, the Wheaton police chief and a key figure in the investigation of the girl’s murder, stopped to talk with reporters.

          “Either way would have been difficult,” Clark said of the jury’s two choices in the penalty phase, either life without parole or the death penalty. “I believe in God, and I believe what the Bible says, ‘An eye for an eye.’”

          He said it would have been a difficult decision for him to make, knowing Collings as well as he does, just as no doubt difficult for each of the jurors who made the decision. He said he can hate only what Collings did, and not the defendant himself, whom Clark has known most of his life.

          “But I can’t look at my children without thinking of Rowan,” Clark said.

          Prosecutor Johnnie Cox told jurors during closing arguments that life is about choices. Sometimes those choices get made for us, he said. Sometimes circumstances are more in control of what happens to us than we are, he said.

          Collings was in control of what he did the night of Nov. 2, 2007, the prosecutor said. He made a conscious decision to return to Stella and snatch Rowan Ford from her room “like a thief in the night,” he said.

          The state asked the jury to consider three possible aggravating circumstances that would put the death penalty on the table for their consideration. Jurors unanimously decided the prosecutors had proved the involvement of torture or depravity of mind in the crime and that the girl was killed because of her potential as a witness against the defendant.

          The proposed aggravating circumstance that the jury did not unanimously agree on concerned whether the murder was committed while in the act of rape.

          Cox had argued that the defendant acknowledged there was torture involved in his strangling of the girl when he admitted to investigators that she did not die quickly. The prosecutor also reminded jurors that the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy thought the sexual assault that preceded her killing would have been especially painful to the prepubescent victim.

          Cox urged the jury “not to reward (Collings) for avoiding an investigation by killing her.”

          “Mercy is something given by the powerful to the weak and innocent,” Cox said.

          Collings had all the power that night, he said. Rowan Ford was weak and innocent. Collings showed her no mercy that night, he said. Cox asked jurors to show Collings no mercy in their decision on the punishment he should receive.

          The defense argued in the penalty phase that Collings had taken responsibility for his crime and exhibited remorse over the course of four confessions made to investigators the day her body was recovered.

          Defense attorney Charles Moreland also called attention to the alleged involvement of the girl’s stepfather, David Spears, 29, who also confessed to participating in the rape and murder in contradiction to Collings’ claim that he acted alone.

          “How do you reconcile these two (separate) confessions?” he asked during closing arguments. “They can’t both be true.”

          He suggested there were just three possibilities. Investigators may have lied when they told Collings during his interrogation that Spears had confessed, hoping that he would inculpate Spears, he said. Or Spears may have been an innocent man who falsely confessed. Either of those possibilities would be mitigating with respect to Collings, because both would mean that he stuck to the truth despite being given the opportunity to shift some of the blame to someone else, Moreland said.

          The third possibility is that investigators were telling the truth — Spears’ confession was genuine and Collings has been taking the blame for more than what he actually did, Moreland said. He suggested there was some evidence to support this third scenario.

          The defense called a canine search specialist to testify Thursday that her dogs detected the scent of human remains on the driver’s seat and rear cargo area of a Chevrolet Suburban that Spears borrowed from his mother the night of the murder.

          In his rebuttal, Cox attacked the suggestion as a calculated “distraction” on the part of the defense, even though Spears remains charged with capital murder just like Collings and is scheduled to be tried in Pulaski County later this year.

          “David Spears is not on trial (here) and has nothing to do with this defendant’s punishment,” Cox said.

          The defense called Wanda Draper, a human development specialist and professor emeritus at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, as a final witness in the penalty phase to testify that Collings suffered severe emotional neglect during his prenatal period and the first six months of his life.

          Draper told jurors that the parental neglect led to confusion, separation anxiety and betrayal trauma throughout his childhood, and ultimately brought about disorganized attachment disorder. She described the disorder as developmental and not a mental illness. She attributed the disorder to a number of stressors at various stages in his life and said it left Collings stuck at an emotional age of about 14 or 15.

          Cox told jurors in closing arguments that Collings’ life may not have been perfect, but “he didn’t have it any worse than a lot of other people.”

          “We are not trying a 14- or 15-year-old boy,” Cox said. “Don’t get pulled into that.”

          Abuse

          Chris Collings told Wanda Draper, a human development specialist who interviewed him in 2009 at the request of defense attorneys, that he tried to commit suicide when he was 7, was molested by a baby sitter when he was 13 and sodomized by one of his birth mother’s husbands at the age of 14.

          Draper acknowledged on cross-examination by Prosecutor Elizabeth Bock that there was no record of any of those claims among the many records on Collings that she reviewed, and he made all those claims to her after having been charged with Rowan Ford’s rape and murder.


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          • #20
            Defense hopes to use Collings’ confessions in Spears’ trial

            Defense hopes to use Collings’ confessions in Spears’ trial

            By Jeff Lehr

            news@joplinglobe.com
            September 1, 2012

            http://www.joplinglobe.com/crime_and...n-Spears-trial
            http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=6611#post6611


            David Spears told his interrogators five years ago that he and Chris Collings took Rowan Ford’s body to Fox Cave in Spears’ mother’s Suburban.

            On the same day, Collings was telling investigators that he hauled the girl’s body to the cave in his pickup truck.

            Alone.

            Collings, 37, made repeated confessions to the abduction, rape and slaying of the 9-year-old girl in November 2007. Those statements figured prominently in the testimony and evidence presented at trial earlier this year when he was convicted of the crime and sentenced to die.

            In each of his confessions, Collings said that he, and he alone, sexually assaulted and strangled the girl at his home near Wheaton. In the videotaped interview in which Collings was first told that Spears had confessed to involvement as well, Collings sneered, shook his head in seeming disbelief, and insisted: “I was there by myself.”

            Attorneys for the girl’s stepfather, Spears, 29, consequently hope to introduce Collings’ confessions as evidence at their client’s capital-murder trial this fall. Defense briefs filed Aug. 14 and Aug. 23 in Pulaski County Circuit Court, where Spears’ case was moved on a change of venue from Barry County, argue that Collings’ confessions should be admitted as evidence because they exonerate Spears.

            Spears is charged with first-degree murder, forcible rape and statutory rape.

            INVOKING THE FIFTH

            The documents state that the defense intends to call Collings as a witness. But one brief also states that the condemned man’s attorneys have informed the defense that, just as Spears did at Collings’ trial, Collings intends to invoke his right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent.

            That raises a legal question whether his various confessions — videotaped or otherwise — should be allowed in as evidence because of their hearsay nature.

            Spears’ attorneys, Cynthia Dryden and Sharon Turlington, argue that the case meets a three-pronged test for admissibility of third-party confessions established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Chambers v. Mississippi: that the person who made the declarations is not available as a witness; that, if true, the statements would exonerate Spears; and that the statements carry certain indicators of reliability.

            Some indicators of reliability that the Supreme Court has laid out for trial courts are: if the statements are against the interest of the person who uttered them, if they are corroborated by other evidence, if they are made to a close acquaintance, if they are spontaneous and the number of times statements are independently made.

            ‘CONFABULATION’

            Spears’ attorneys argue that Collings’ confessions obviously run counter to self-interest since the prosecution relied upon them to convict him and to sway a jury to recommend the death penalty.

            The stepfather allegedly told investigators that after a night of drinking and smoking pot with Collings and Nathan Mahurin, Spears and Mahurin left Collings’ place and took a leisurely drive on some back roads to Spears’ home in Stella. Spears said that when he got back and saw his stepdaughter was gone, he realized that Collings had taken a more direct route to his house and abducted her.

            Spears borrowed his mother’s van and drove to Collings’ home, where he caught his friend in the act of sexually assaulting her but decided to join in the rape rather than intervene on her behalf, according to his own alleged confession. In further contradiction to Collings’ statements, Spears told investigators that he was the one who strangled his stepdaughter with a piece of cord, and that they then disposed of her body together.

            The defense has asserted in pre-trial hearings and motions that this was a confabulation, or false confession, obtained by investigators after a week of accusatory interrogations. An expert witness for the defense testified at a suppression hearing in 2010 that under such pressure, Spears gradually came to internalize the belief that he must have committed the crime even though he had no memory of it.

            CORROBORATING EVIDENCE

            Collings told investigators that the only thing Spears was guilty of was leaving the girl alone. They told him Spears knew some details about the rape and killing that he could not have known any other way unless Collings told him. Collings denied that he told Spears anything, but insisted Spears had nothing to do with the crime.

            “When the DNA comes in, it’s going to tell the truth,” Collings said.

            In a brief filed Aug. 23, Spears’ attorneys argue that the physical evidence in the case corroborates Collings’ confessions and not their client’s: “Two pubic hairs consistent with Chris Collings are found on Rowan’s body, near her vagina. Although Rowan was raped, forensic testing failed to find any sperm, although seminal fluid was found. Records show that Chris Collings has had a vasectomy; therefore he would not produce sperm, explaining the lack of sperm on Rowan’s body.”

            Spears was excluded as a possible source of the pubic hairs, the brief argues. But the mitochondrial DNA from those hairs matches up with Collings’ mitochondrial DNA profile, a match found in less than 1.52 percent of the Caucasian population, the brief states.

            In contrast, “forensic testing failed to find anything to link David Spears to Rowan Ford’s body,” the brief points out.

            The defense claims there is additional evidence backing up Collings’ account that he took the body to the cave in his truck. Hairs containing DNA “consistent with Rowan Ford” were found in the bed of the truck where Collings said he placed the body. Prosecutors entered those hairs as evidence at Collings’ trial.

            Also, there was a cigarette butt recovered from the bed of the truck that bore “a mixture of DNA on it consistent with Chris Collings and Rowan Ford,” the defense argues.

            ‘TO THE DAY I DIE’

            Circuit Judge Tracy Storie has given the prosecution and defense time to file additional briefs on the issue. The judge ultimately must decide if any of Collings’ statements are to be allowed in and at what point of the trial, during the guilt-or-innocence phase, the penalty phase or both.

            Among the statements of Collings that Spears’ attorneys would like to use are two he made to family members at the Barry County Jail a few days after his arrest.

            He told them that he had been “stupid” and opened his mouth and “said too much” and that he was “going to fry for this.” When they suggested that he might be covering for someone else, he again denied it, the defense briefs state.

            When Spears is specifically mentioned during a conversation with Collings’ parents, Collings reportedly said: “Hopefully, I can have this separated from David’s case . . . because, I, he’s a f------ idiot, and I want no part of it . . . I’ll never to the day I die understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. But I’ll fill you in on that when it’s not going to be something that won’t hinder my case.”


            Last edited by Librarian; 09-03-2012, 07:01 PM.
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            • #21
              Spears pleads guilty, Plea bargain nets stepfather 11 years in prison.

              Spears pleads guilty
              Plea bargain nets stepfather 11 years in prison.

              By Todd G. Higdon
              September 26. 2012 10:01PM
              Neosho, MO



              http://www.neoshodailynews.com/artic...NEWS/120929001
              http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=6814#post6814

              WAYNESVILLE, Mo. — David Spears, 29, the stepfather of Rowan Ford, was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison after reaching a plea agreement in the death of the 9-year-old girl.

              Spears pleaded guilty Wednesday to child endangerment and hindering prosecution charges in the 2007 death of Ford.

              As part of the plea deal, Barry County prosecutors dismissed first-degree murder and rape charges against Spears because the physical evidence failed to implicate him or was inconsistent with statements Spears made to investigators, Barry County Prosecutor Johnnie Cox said in a statement Wednesday to the Associated Press.

              Spears was sentenced to seven years in prison on the child endangerment charge and four years on the hindering prosecution charge. The sentences are to run consecutively.

              After hearing the news, Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland was interviewed by the Neosho Daily News.

              “Almost five years ago, one of the most horrific crimes in my career occurred in Stella,” Copeland said. “That was the kidnap, rape and murder of Rowan Ford, 9. I have never seen so many law enforcement agencies involved and worked more closely together. More than 75 FBI agents, highway patrol, all of the agencies in Newton County assisted us on that. We cannot manufacture evidence: we had what we had. We had the same evidence four and a half years ago as we do today; nothing changed all of that time. What we had is Spears confessing that he witnessed the murder. We have Chris Collings, who’s sitting on death row. There is no doubt in any of our minds that he abducted, raped and murdered little Rowan. During that time, Spears admitted and gave the interrogators a confession that he was present.”

              Collings, 37, of Wheaton, was convicted on rape and murder charges and sentenced to death earlier this year for the child’s death. His execution date hasn’t been set.

              Collings repeatedly confessed to the abduction, rape and slaying of the child, and has said that he alone sexually assaulted and strangled the girl at his home near Wheaton.

              “David Spears and Chris Collings are responsible for the death of this little girl,” Copeland added.

              Inside Copeland’s office there is a picture of Ford that has been there for nearly five years.

              “It is still there today, I have looked at it more today than I have in the past several months,” the sheriff said. “It will stay there. As far as I am concerned, it will be there as long as I am sheriff, as a reminder not of just her, but all of the little kids out there that are mistreated and abused. It is a reminder to me and to all of us that we need to do more for our kids.”
              123Next


              ===666===666===666===

              The Neosho Daily Douche

              All the ZOGling-Approved Shit That Sorta Fits We Print
              http://www.neoshodailynews.com/

              Comment


              • #22
                Murder, rape charges dropped against Rowan Ford's stepfather; pleads guilty to lesser charges

                Murder, rape charges dropped against Rowan Ford's stepfather; pleads guilty to lesser charges


                http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2012/...d-against.html
                http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=6819#post6819



                .

                East Newton High School is missing a student this year.

                The 2012-2013 school year would have been Rowan Ford’s first at East Newton, the beginning of a new chapter in the Stella girl’s life.

                That chapter closed before it ever ended nearly five years ago, November 2, 2007, when Rowan, a nine-year-old fourth grader at Triway Elementary, was raped and murdered. Earlier this year, one of the two men charged with the crime, Chris Collings of Wheaton, a family friend, was found guilty and was sentenced to death. The first appeal of that sentence has already been filed.

                The other man accused of the crime, Rowan Ford’s stepfather, David Wesley Spears, will never stand trial for the murder.

                The Barry County Prosecuting Attorney’s office dropped the charges against Spears Tuesday. Instead, Spears pleaded guilty to charges of child endangerment, for which he received a seven-year sentence, and hindering prosecution, which brought him an additional four years. The sentences will run consecutively, according to online court records.

                Spears reportedly went drinking with friends, leaving the nine-year-old alone. After her disappearance, he repeatedly lied to the authorities, before finally leading them to the discovery of Rowan Ford’s body.

                Though Spears told investigators that he had committed the rape and murder, Collings insisted that he was the only one involved and reportedly, none of Spears’ DNA was found on the child’s body.

                Collings did not testify at his trial. It would not have done him any good. In fact, his attorneys did not present any witnesses, but simply rested their case. It was Collings’ chilling confession to Barry County deputies that after drinking heavily and smoking marijuana, he took Rowan Ford from her bedroom to his place, raped her and then murdered her when he thought she had recognized him and would be able to tell what he had done that cinched the guilty verdict.

                Despite Collings’ insistence that he was the only one involved in Rowan Ford’s death, deputies indicated Spears had information that he could have only known if he had participated in the crime. There was no mention of that in statements issued following Tuesday’s guilty plea.

                The plea and sentencing bring to an end a case that has had a profound effect on life in Stella, a community of 200, over the past five years.

                In 2010, when the community dedicated a memorial park for veterans, a tribute to Rowan Ford was included.

                And visitors still flock to a memorial webpage for Rowan, with condolences continuing to pour in and pages filled with pictures of Rowan and images of cartoon characters like Winnie the Pooh, a direct contrast to the depravity and violence that ended Rowan’s life.

                April 11, on what would have been Rowan’s 14th birthday, the following message was left on the memorial page:
                Happy birthday, Rowan. i know you had a wonderful day with all your angel friends you have met, but just wanted you know i miss you, but haven't forgotten you and someday I will see you again and will see that beautiful smile and get a big hug from you.”



                Posted by Randy at 8:47 PM WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2012


                ___666___666___666___



                The Turner Diaries RULES, The Turner Report drools

                Comment


                • #23
                  VIDEO: Stepfather takes plea deal in Rowan Ford murder case

                  VIDEO: Stepfather takes plea deal in Rowan Ford murder case

                  Stepfather pleads guilty to lesser charges

                  By Jeff Lehr

                  jlehr@joplinglobe.com
                  September 26, 2012


                  http://www.joplinglobe.com/crime_and...t-David-Spears
                  http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...=6822#post6822


                  WAYNESVILLE, Mo. — Citing legal difficulties with his alleged confession, prosecutors dropped murder and rape charges against Rowan Ford’s stepfather Wednesday, allowing him to plead guilty to two lesser felonies and be assessed 11 years in prison.

                  David W. Spears, 29, pleaded guilty to child endangerment and hindering prosecution at a hearing in Pulaski County Circuit Court in Waynesville, where his case was moved in a change of venue from Barry County.

                  Circuit Judge Tracy Storie assessed Spears seven years in prison on the endangerment count and four years for hindering prosecution, and ordered that the terms run consecutively as requested by the state. Since Spears already has served almost five years in jail, he could be eligible for parole within a matter of a few years.

                  At the hearing, Spears admitted leaving his 9-year-old stepdaughter alone at their home in Stella the night she was abducted, raped and killed in November 2007. He also admitted leaving a message on the answering machine of his drinking buddy, Nathan Mahurin, asking Mahurin to lie to investigators about why he left her alone.

                  But the state was forced to drop counts of first-degree murder, forcible rape and statutory rape that Spears was facing because of conflicts between his alleged confession and statements provided to investigators by co-defendant Chris Collings, according to Johnny Cox, the Barry County prosecutor. Cox also cited new forensic evidence that became available in August.

                  Collings’ claims

                  Collings, 37, who was convicted in March and sentenced to die, repeatedly claimed to investigators five years ago that he acted alone. Cox said Collings’ various statements were “the most critical piece of evidence” the state had in convicting him of the crime.

                  On the other hand, Spears told investigators that he strangled the girl while Collings aided and encouraged him, and the prosecution would have had to argue the validity of that claim if Spears were taken to trial, Cox said.

                  “This would put the state in a position of arguing inconsistent theories of who actually strangled Rowan Ford,” Cox said. “The state would have to argue that both versions are true, even if they both cannot be true.”

                  He said state and federal courts prohibit inconsistent theories in the prosecution of co-defendants. Pursuing such a course could result not only in the overturning of any conviction of Spears that might be obtained, but also the conviction of Collings that already has been obtained, he said.

                  “Without physical evidence that is consistent with David Spears’ statement, the state cannot and will not pursue a course of action that would put the Christopher Collings conviction at risk,” Cox said.

                  Cox said he knows many people are convinced that Spears was involved. But he cannot be certain without any evidence to support his confession, he said.

                  “I cannot in good conscience ask a jury to convict a person of murder in the first degree and ask that he be put to death if I am uncertain about his involvement,” Cox said.

                  False confession

                  The defense has asserted in pretrial hearings and motions that Spears provided a false confession, or confabulation, to investigators after several accusatory interrogations in the week after the girl’s disappearance. An expert witness testified at a hearing in 2010 that under such pressure, Spears gradually came to internalize a belief that he must have committed the crime even though he had no memory of it.

                  Defense attorney Sharon Turlington said after the hearing that “everything about this case has been consistent with a false confession.”

                  “What happened here today is David took responsibility for what he did do,” Turlington said. “He was never involved in the abduction, rape or murder of Rowan.”

                  She said the physical evidence in the case is inconsistent with the alleged confession Spears provided investigators but does corroborate Collings’ version of the crime.

                  Spears allegedly told investigators that after a night of drinking and smoking marijuana with Collings and Mahurin, he and Mahurin left Collings’ home in Wheaton and took a leisurely drive along some back roads to his home in Stella. The stepfather said that when he got back, he saw that his stepdaughter was gone and realized that Collings had taken a more direct route and abducted her.

                  He told investigators that he borrowed his mother’s van and drove to Collings’ home, where he caught his friend in the act of sexually assaulting the girl. Rather than intervening, he joined in the sexual assault of the girl, he allegedly told investigators.

                  In direct contradiction to Collings’ account, Spears allegedly said he strangled the girl with a piece of cord and that they then disposed of her body together, hauling it to a cave in McDonald County inside his mother’s Suburban. Collings told investigators that he took the girl’s body to the cave in the back of his pickup truck.

                  DNA tests

                  Hairs containing DNA consistent with Rowan’s DNA profile were found in the back of Collings’ truck, and prosecutors entered those hairs as evidence at Collings’ trial. And, two hairs found on her body during an autopsy were determined to be a match with Collings’ mitochondrial DNA profile, a match found in less than 1.52 percent of the Caucasian population. Tests excluded Spears as a possible source of the hairs.

                  Cox said three different laboratories — the FBI and Missouri State Highway Patrol crime labs and an independent lab consulted by the defense — analyzed a rape kit that was collected at the autopsy, and two of those labs tested items from the back of Collings’ truck. None of the labs found any evidence to implicate Spears, he said.

                  The defense had to wait until after Collings’ trial to have items analyzed at their independent lab. Cox acknowledged that the testing done there came up with new evidence supporting Collings’ account of the crime and not what Spears told investigators.

                  In particular, a hair and a cigarette butt found in the back of Collings’ truck that had not been tested by the FBI or the state patrol were analyzed. The hair matched Collings’ mitochondrial DNA, and DNA Short Tandem Repeat testing of the cigarette butt, which showed a presumptive positive for blood, found a mixture of DNA from Collings and the girl. The match to Collings’ profile was one in 170 billion within a Caucasian population.

                  During the sentencing phase of Collings’ trial, in an effort to suggest that Collings may not have been the only one involved in the crime, his attorneys called a woman handler of a cadaver dog to testify that her dog alerted on Spears’ mother’s Suburban, possibly indicating that a dead body had been in the vehicle.

                  Cynthia Dryden, Spears’ other attorney, said after the hearing that investigators searched the Suburban “with every method possible,” from vacuuming for trace evidence to black light examination, and “didn’t find anything.” The state had argued at Collings’ trial that what the dog may have been alerting on was cells shed from the necrotic tissue of a leg wound his father suffered.

                  Colleen Spears, the girl’s mother, who attended the plea hearing, had little comment to make. She acknowledged that she was informed of the pending plea deal about 10 days ago. She said she had no real choice but to accept the outcome.

                  “I couldn’t do anything else,” she said.

                  Apology

                  THE DEFENSE released a statement after the plea hearing Wednesday that said David Spears is “deeply sorry that his actions, leaving Rowan Ford alone that night, contributed to the tragic death of his stepdaughter,” and that the pain it has caused her family, his own family and the community “will carry with him forever.”


                  All the shit unfit to print

                  http://www.joplinglobe.com

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Supreme Court denies death row appeal for Rowan Ford's killer

                    Supreme Court denies death row appeal for Rowan Ford's killer


                    http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2014/...ow-appeal.html
                    http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...1226#post11226
                    http://christian-identity.net/forum/...1226#post11226


                    .

                    The Missouri Supreme Court today denied the death row appeal of Chris Collings, who raped and murdered nine-year-old Rowan Ford, Stella, a fourth grader at Triway Elementary School, on November 2, 2007.

                    The court heard arguments in the case January 8, with public defenders representing Collings asking that he either be granted a new trial, be sentenced to second degree murder instead of first degree, or resentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

                    The attorneys cited a number of reasons for the requests including the following, all of which were rejected by the judges.
                    -Collings did not confess voluntarily. "Law enforcement officers exploited the close friendship Collings had with Wheaton Police Chief Clinton Clark." The petition also says law enforcement took advantage of Collings' fear of vigilante justice.

                    -Clark kept Collings talking even though he was aware Collings had an attorney.

                    -The prosecution failed to prove an element of first degree murder, that Collings had "coolly reflected" before killing Rowan Ford. Testimony indicated that Collings "freaked out" when he realized that Rowan had recognized him after he raped her.

                    -The judge should not have allowed the prosecution to show "excessively gruesome and prejudicial" photos of Rowan Ford.

                    -The judge should have declared a mistrial after the prosecutor simulated the strangulation of Rowan Ford in front of the jury.

                    -Chris Collings has shown "deep remorse" and "accepted responsibility" for the murder.

                    .


                    .

                    The facts of the case were laid out at the beginning of the brief submitted by Collings' attorneys.
                    STATEMENT OF FACTS
                    On November 2, 2007, nine-year-old Rowan Ford lived with her mother, Colleen Munson, and her step-father, David Spears, at 777 Grove Street, in Stella, Newton County, Missouri. Spears was friends with Christopher Collings and Nathan Mahurin. Collings lived in a camper in Wheaton, in Barry County.

                    Friday, November 2nd
                    At about 6:00 p.m., Mahurin drove Collings and Spears to Spears’ house. On the way, they bought two or three six-packs of Smirnoff Ice. At Spears’ house, they drank and played pool in the basement.
                    At 8:30 p.m., Colleen went to work, leaving Spears to babysit Rowan.

                    Later, Collings and Mahurin left to buy more alcohol. Collings asked Mahurin to drive him home. They talked Spears into coming along and leaving Rowan by herself. On the way, they stopped to buy another six-pack of Smirnoff Ice. They arrived at Collings’ camper at about 11 p.m. and talked, drank, and smoked marijuana.

                    After 30-60 minutes, Mahurin needed to get home. Because they were drunk, he and Spears drove back roads slowly. Mahurin left Collings’ camper at about 1 or 11:30 p.m. and dropped Spears off at 777 Grove. The drive took 10-20 minutes.

                    Saturday, November 3rd
                    At about 9:00 a.m., Colleen came home and could not find Rowan. Spears told her that Rowan was at a friend’s house but could not say which friend.

                    Colleen walked around Stella looking for her daughter and then drove around with Spears. She wanted Spears to call the police, but he would not, insisting that Rowan was at a friend’s house. Finally, at about 5:00 or 6:00 p.m., Spears called the Newton County Sheriff’s Department to report Rowan missing. Patrolmen searched for Rowan, and the Highway Patrol tried to locate her friends. Sheriff deputies interviewed Spears and Mahurin for several hours. Spears, Mahurin, and Collings were considered suspects or “persons of interest,” since they were the last ones to have seen Rowan.

                    Sunday, November 4th
                    On Sunday, law enforcement teams searched the area. Newton County deputies spoke with Collings, who was concerned, cooperative, and polite.

                    He stated that he, Spears, and Mahurin were drinking and playing pool at Spears’ house. At about 10:30 p.m., they left Rowan, bought more alcohol, and went to Collings’ camper. They had been drinking heavily all evening. Spears and Mahurin left sometime after midnight, and Collings went to bed.
                    Later, Collings visited Munson. Collings had lived at 777 Grove Street with Munson, Spears, and Rowan Ford for several months, but had recently moved out. He asked Munson how the search was going, and he offered to help find Rowan. Collings visited Munson again the next day.

                    Monday, November 5th

                    The F.B.I. joined the investigation on November 5th. They set up a command post, with phone lines so people could call in tips. Searches were conducted in and around Stella. Two Newton County deputies went to Collings’ workplace and asked him to answer more questions. Collings agreed, drove to the Sheriff’s Department, and relayed largely the same account as the day before. Collings agreed to take a Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA) test. An officer asked Collings about Spears and the events of Friday night. He then read Collings his rights; Collings understood and signed the form.

                    After the test, Collings again spoke with the two deputies. He insisted he knew nothing about Rowan’s disappearance. He agreed to answer questions again if needed and offered to help in the search. Collings had a long-standing, close relationship with the Wheaton Chief of Police, Clinton Clark. Collings had known Clark since he was a young boy.

                    Clark was a good friend of Collings’ adoptive mother, Betty, and also knew his adoptive father, Clarence Collings came to Clark for help and advice, and for solace when Betty died. After Collings moved to Arkansas, he made sure to come visit Clark each time he came back home. Collings trusted Clark.
                    Late Monday afternoon, Clark was on patrol when Collings flagged him down. Collings told Clark that Rowan was missing and that he had been at the Sheriff’s Office all day helping find her. Collings was not acting normal and seemed excited. Clark encouraged him to continue to help the investigation.

                    Afterwards, Clark called the Newton County Sheriff’s Office and the F.B.I. to inform them that Collings had contacted him. He told them he and Collings were long-standing friends and had good rapport. He believed Collings knew something about Rowan’s disappearance, and he offered his help in the investigation. Deputy Jennings encouraged Clark to keep working with Collings, and in turn, Clark called Jennings throughout the week to relay the contacts he had with Collings.

                    Meanwhile, Deputy Jennings had been interviewing David Spears with the help of Mark Bridges, the Newton County coroner.Bridges had been Spears’ past employer. They had known each other quite awhile and had good rapport.

                    On Monday evening, two F.B.I. agents went to 777 Grove. Collings spoke with one of the agents and gave an account consistent with what he had already told investigators. Collings suggested places to search for Rowan.

                    Tuesday, November 6th

                    On Tuesday, F.B.I. agents Ramana and Tarpley came to Clark’s office. They encouraged Clark to help in the investigation. Clark considered this a request for mutual aid from one law enforcement agency to another.
                    Late that afternoon, Collings visited Clark. He told Clark that when he was at work, F.B.I. agents took him to Newton County to answer more questions, and he spent most of the day there. Collings could not make eye contact and kept his head down. They spoke just a few minutes. Clark believed Collings had
                    something on his mind.

                    Wednesday, November 7th

                    At 9:15 a.m., officers again went to Collings’ workplace, and Collings agreed to answer more questions. He agreed to DNA testing, allowed officers to search a safe found in the basement of 777 Grove, and consented to a search of his property and buildings.

                    Collings discussed the same matters previously discussed. Additionally, the officers asked about information they had received that Spears was trying to establish an alibi for Friday evening. Collings refuted the alibi,
                    denying that he had run out of gas on Friday night. He admitted that he, Spears, and Mahurin smoked a “hog’s leg,” a really large marijuana cigarette, at his camper on Friday evening. (Tr.3953). He told the officers that he could not have beaten Spears and Mahurin back to Spears’ house on Friday evening.
                    Collings took a polygraph test. At the end of the test, he refused to speak to the examiner further.

                    Two agents questioned Collings from 2:45 to 5:12 p.m. Collings told them that if they insinuated he was involved in Rowan’s disappearance, he would stop talking to them. Collings left soon afterwards, at 5:18 p.m.

                    Very upset, Collings visited Clark. He stated that the officers needed to back off and that, if they continued to accuse him, he would not speak with them and would get an attorney.

                    Collings said he told them that if he had anything to say, he would say it to Clark. Clark told Collings it was his constitutional right to get an attorney, but he also urged Collings to keep helping find Rowan. He told
                    Collings it would not be in his best interest to stop cooperating with law enforcement. Collings said he thought he should get a lawyer. Clark then read Collings his rights.

                    Collings agreed to speak and signed the form at 6:18 p.m. Wednesday evening. Collings started crying and stated he had always loved Rowan and would not hurt her. At that point, someone came into the office. Collings abruptly left, stating he needed to give his father his medication.

                    Afterwards, Clark called the F.B.I. He reported that Collings was near a breaking point and suggested that the agents give Collings a day off from questioning. He would try to talk to Collings and get him to disclose what happened.

                    Meanwhile, a field search was conducted on Collings’ property. The two-acre property contained abandoned vehicles, junk, and trailers. No evidence was seized.

                    Thursday, November 8th

                    On Thursday, Clark met with F.B.I. agents Stinnett and Tarpley.
                    They talked about Clark’s unique relationship with Collings and the dynamics of Collings’ family. Clark thought Collings knew something about Rowan’s disappearance.

                    The missing piece of the puzzle was locating Rowan’s body. Once they found the body, the agents wanted Clark to speak with Collings. If Collings was going to confess, it would be to
                    Clark.

                    Friday, November 9th

                    Rowan’s body was finally found in a sinkhole/cave called Fox Cave. The cave was 20-30 feet from the road in a wooded area. It was 10-15 feet deep. Rowan was naked except for a shirt and a sock.
                    There appeared to be blood at her vaginal area and ligature marks on her neck.

                    Clark heard on the news that Rowan’s body had been found. He learned that Collings had come into his office looking for him. At 1:30 p.m., he went looking for Collings. At 2:08 p.m., Collings called Clark and asked if law enforcement officers were following him in a gray van.. Clark told him he had not heard of any such surveillance. Collings was shaken and feared for his safety. He had driven all over trying to lose the van and was finally able to do so. Clark told him to go directly to his office. But instead, Collings suggested Clark stay where he was, and he would join him. Clark hung up and immediately called F.B.I. Agent Tarpley to advise that he had contacted Collings.

                    When Collings arrived a few minutes later, he and Clark spoke about the gray van. Clark told Collings they needed to talk, and he should come to Clark’s office. Collings agreed, and they drove together in Clark’s police car. On the way, they discussed the van. Collings was worried that people might take matters into their own hands. Knowing that Collings was upset, Clark told him that he did not work 24 hours a day and could not guarantee his safety all the time.He told him that he would protect him to the extent he could.
                    At the office, Clark read Collings his rights. Collings was worried about the fact he had been followed. He signed a waiver form, noting the time as 3 p.m.

                    Collings cried and started to talk, but someone came into the office. Collings would not speak with so many people around. Clark asked if
                    Collings wanted to go somewhere else. Collings agreed to go to the Muncie Bridge, a few miles out of town.
                    Clark drove to the Muncie Bridge with Collings in the front passenger seat. Collings was not under arrest. On the way, at 2:30 p.m., Clark phoned the Newton and Barry County Sheriff Departments to advise that
                    he would be speaking to Collings at the Muncie Bridge.

                    Clark and Collings sat on a slope near the bridge. Collings relayed largely the same story he had previously told law enforcement, up to the point when Spears and Mahurin left his camper. From that point onward, however, Collings relayed a different story. Crying, Collings confessed to raping and killing Rowan.

                    At 2:25 p.m., driving back to his office, Clark called to tell the city clerk to empty the building. He called other law enforcement officers to tell them to meet him and Collings at his office. There, Collings recounted his statement in front of six law enforcement officers. He was very upset. Collings was handcuffed and taken to the Barry County Sheriff’s Department.

                    At 5:29 p.m., he was read his Miranda rights and gave a videotaped statement. He acknowledged that his
                    rights had been read to him several times.

                    The Confession

                    Collings explained that, before they left his camper, Mahurin and Spears stated they were going to take back roads home so they could smoke more marijuana and finish the alcohol, while also avoiding the police. Collings probably had five six-packs of Smirnoff Ice, and Spears and Mahurin also drank whiskey
                    and tequila. Collings knew that if he hurried, he could beat Spears home. He felt strange.. He did not know why he drove to Spears’ house. He was “really, really fucked up” and did not intend to take
                    Rowan.

                    Collings drove the direct route to Spears’ house. He walked through the house, looking in a few rooms.
                    He went into Rowan’s room and saw her on the floor under a blanket. He picked her up and carried her to the truck.

                    Collings probably started to think about having sex with Rowan on the way
                    home. At his camper, he carried Rowan, still sleeping, inside and
                    put her on the bed. He “used his finger on her a little” and then had vaginal intercourse with her for a few minutes, possibly ejaculating. Rowan awoke when Collings penetrated her, and she struggled. Intercourse lasted possibly four or five minutes. Collings intended to return Rowan to her bed. He led Rowan
                    outside, facing away from him so that she could not see his face. He had made sure to keep the lights off in the camper and did not speak so Rowan would not recognize his voice. But outside, in the light of
                    the moon, Rowan looked back and saw Collings. Collings knew that she had recognized him, and he “freaked out.” He saw a coil of cord in the bed of the old pickup truck next to him. He took the cord, looped it around Rowan’s neck, and pulled it tight for a few minutes. She struggled a little and fell to the ground. Collings went to the ground with her and held tight until she stopped moving.

                    Here, Collings had to stop to compose himself during his videotaped confession. Collings knew he needed to hide Rowan’s body. He put her in the pickup truck’s bed. Initially, he planned to put her in a creek, but he did not want her to be discovered quickly, so he left her in Fox Cave.

                    Back at his camper, Collings turned on the light and discovered blood on his mattress and clothes. In a woodstove, he burned Rowan’s pants, underpants, his clothes, and the rope He took the mattress
                    outside, rolled it up, and put it in a 55-gallon drum with some old carpet to help it burn. He moved the drum into the calf barn so the fire would not be so noticeable. Collings denied that Spears or anyone else was involved in Rowan’s death. He vouched that he gave his statement of his own free will, without threats or promises. Collings noted that he had been “bawling like a baby all afternoon.” . He felt guilty and remorseful.

                    Second Videotaped Statement

                    While Collings was giving his first videotaped statement on Friday afternoon, Deputy Jennings was re-interviewing Spears with Mark Bridges at the Newton County Sheriff Department. Because of statements Spears made, the officers questioned Collings again at 8:02 p.m. Collings was told that Spears confessed to also having sex with Rowan, being there when Collings killed her, and helping dispose of the body.
                    Spears stated that after Mahurin took him home, he called his mother, had her bring her Suburban to the house, and he took the Suburban over to Collings’ camper. But Collings repeatedly insisted that Spears had nothing to do with Rowan’s death.

                    November 9th Search

                    Collings’ property was searched for a second time that evening. In the camper, officers found a twin box spring but no mattress.Outside the camper was a silver pick-up truck, and in the bed was a rusted, empty metal spool. A piece of string or twine was found on the driver’s side floor. In the calf barn was a 55-gallon drum, and in the yard was a 55-gallon drum converted into a woodstove. A burn pile off into the trees contained an item appearing to be cord, but which, upon testing, was determined not to be.

                    Collings’ white pickup truck was thoroughly searched. A light-to-medium brown Caucasian head hair, about seven inches long, was found in the truck bed. A partial DNA profile was developed and found to be
                    consistent with Rowan’s DNA profile. The frequency of the partial profile in the Caucasian population was 1 in 328,700.

                    Procedural History
                    On December 21, 2007, Collings was charged with one count of first-degree murder, one count of forcible rape, and one count of statutory rape.Venue was changed to Phelps County, and a jury was selected from Platte County. The court severed the murder count from the rape counts.

                    Collings moved to suppress his statements and all evidence gained from the November 9th search of his property. Collings moved to admit the videotape of a November 14, 2007, conversation between Collings and Clark at the jail five days after Collings’ arrest. He argued that the videotape showed the nature of his relationship with Clark and how Clark pressured him to forego his constitutional rights. The court refused to consider the videotape and denied the motion to suppress.

                    At trial, Collings objected to testimony and evidence regarding the string seized taken from the burn pile; ashes/debris taken from the wood stove; the partial DNA profile; and the hair analysis, on the ground that they lacked true probative value, but the court overruled the objections.. Over objection, the State presented multiple gory photographs.. During closing argument, defense counsel objected that
                    the State was personalizing its argument by acting out the strangulation. The jury found Collings guilty of first-degree murder.

                    Penalty Phase: State’s Evidence
                    Colleen Munson testified that Rowan was a typical little girl who loved school, church, and biking. The last time Munson saw Rowan, Rowan ran down the steps to give her a hug and a kiss before Munson left for work.

                    While Rowan was missing, Munson sat outside every day awaiting her return. Rowan’s death devastated Munson. Since Rowan’s death, Munson has been suicidal, was hospitalized several times, and remains under psychiatric care.She thinks of Rowan all the time.

                    Ariane Parsons, Rowan’s older sister by ten years, testified that Rowan was a bundle of love who cared about everybody, had beautiful brown eyes, and loved to ride her bike. Because Munson worked nights and slept during the day, Parsons took care of Rowan like a mother. They did everything together.
                    Parsons moved out the month after she turned eighteen, about five weeks before Rowan disappeared. She felt responsible for Rowan’s death because she was not there to protect her.
                    From the time Parsons was fifteen, Collings sometimes acted inappropriately toward her. Once, when Munson and Spears were at work, Collings called Parsons into the room to look at pornography. Other times, he rubbed against her, grabbed her butt, or touched her breasts.Collings would jokingly say something sexual and then say he was waiting for her to be a certain age. Parsons repeatedly told Munson and Spears, but they said he was just joking. She never saw Collings do anything inappropriate toward Rowan.

                    Two teachers testified that Rowan was very sweet, always willing to do what she was told, and never in trouble. She loved school, worked hard, and read avidly.Rowan came from a poor family, and her home conditions were not good. She sometimes came to school in the winter with no socks. Rowan’s hair was always matted and ratty, and she sometimes had lice..The teachers believed she was the victim of parental neglect and reported it to DFS, but nothing changed.

                    When Rowan was missing, class was very difficult. The kids wrote poems and made cards for Rowan. Even now, the teachers missed Rowan and thought of her every day. One teacher became so depressed after her death he sought counseling.

                    The morning of Rowan’s funeral, the students planted a pink dogwood tree in her memory and under the tree, placed a memorial marker and a small angel kneeling in prayer. The children wrote notes to Rowan and attached them to purple balloons which they released. A bench
                    with a plaque in Rowan’s memory was placed in the school library.

                    A neighbor testified that Rowan was quiet, kind, and sweet-natured.Rowan was best friend to her son Tyler. After Rowan’s death, Tyler insisted on sleeping with his mother. Another neighbor testified that Rowan
                    was “a beautiful little girl” whom she would have liked to have had as a granddaughter.

                    Penalty Phase: Defense Evidence

                    Collings’ biological parents were Dale Pickett and Barbara DiBello. Starting at age fourteen, Barbara had eleven arrests for robbery, stealing, and assault and had issues with alcohol and drug abuse.
                    Barbara was married three times and had six children before she married Dale. Collings was their only child together. Collings was born with a large red knot on the left side of his head. Barbara
                    massaged it, and it
                    went away within a few weeks or months. They never knew what caused it. Both Dale and Barbara liked to drink. Dale typically got drunk every day. Barbara used drugs and alcohol, but stopped when she was
                    pregnant with Collings, only to start again after his birth.She often got drunk and fought with Dale.
                    Collings lived with Dale and Barbara for the first six months of his life. (Tr.5967).
                    Dale spent time with Collings and loved him. But most of the care Collings received came from his half-brother Greg, age twelve, who was the only one responsible enough to take care of him.

                    In August, 1975, Dale shot a man in Arkansas and was charged with assault with intent to kill. He pled guilty and received a 21-year prison sentence.

                    With Dale in prison, Barbara worked several jobs and was not home much. When Collings was around six months old, Barbara instructed Greg to clean the house and then left. She returned drunk and beat Greg repeatedly.

                    When she realized what she had done, she got a butcher knife from the kitchen and went after the man who had gotten her drunk. Barbara was arrested for drunk driving and making threats. Around this time, she was diagnosed with explosive personality disorder.The children were sent to a shelter home for a few days and then later to different foster homes.

                    In September, 1975, Collings, then seven months old, was sent to live with Clarence and Betty Collings and their children Debbie, Robin, and Randy. In February, 1976, when Collings was one, Debbie died
                    in a car accident.

                    Collings’ difficulties started when he was very young. He got high fevers that caused him to have seizures.
                    Throughout Collings’ childhood and adolescence, his birth parents were in and out
                    of jail and prison, and in and out of his life. Collings had supervised visits with his mother, until she was returned to custody on a parole violation. When Dale was paroled, he arranged a visit with Collings, then six years old. Around this time, Collings was molested by his baby-sitter’s 13-year-old son. 4). At age seven, he attempted suicide.

                    When Collings was eight, Clarence and Betty adopted him. Clarence was ambivalent about the adoption and worried that Dale would cause problems. But Betty thought that since Collings had been with them seven years, it would only be right to adopt him. She also thought the adoption would strengthen her marriage with Clarence.

                    When Collings was nine, Betty and Clarence separated, then divorced two years later. Although custody was awarded to Betty, Collings was often shuttled back and forth between his parents. Collings would
                    get out of control and tear things up. He snuck out and stayed out
                    late.

                    At age fourteen or fifteen, Collings started using drugs and alcohol. He was placed on house arrest for forging checks. He was failing his classes, got suspended for six weeks for disruptive behavior, and had to repeat ninth grade.

                    At fifteen, Collings returned to his biological mother, Barbara, for two months. But the reunion was ill-fated, and eventually Barbara told Collings he could never come back. During this time, Barbara’s new husband sodomized Collings.

                    Collings was getting increasingly destructive, and his adoptive parents did not know what to do. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for almost two months.Collings was given the Axis I diagnoses of intermittent explosive disorder; dysthymia, major depression, recurrent; parent child problems;
                    academic problems; and conduct disorder; solitary aggressive type. His global assessment of functioning was 35 on a scale of 100, indicating major impairment. He still wet his bed. Collings was prescribed
                    medication, but he stopped taking them soon after leaving the hospital. Although he was supposed to attend psychotherapy sessions, he only went to two. A psychologist recommended that Collings not re-enter
                    school until he was more stable emotionally, so Collings was schooled at home.

                    At sixteen, Collings lived with Clarence, his adoptive father, but Clarence had remarried, and Collings did not get along with the new wife, Diane. He physically assaulted Diane and his step-sister Julie. He also assaulted an 11-year-old boy.

                    Collings admitted the assaults and was given probation and house arrest. He tried Job Corps but was discharged for disciplinary reasons. Collings was stuck at the maturity level of a fourteen or fifteen year old. He violated his probation, was committed to DYS, and was sent to live in a juvenile detention center. There, it was determined that Collings was not succeeding in school; was under-socialized; did not know how to get along with others; seemed lonely, scared, and confused; and had poor hygiene.

                    At seventeen, still under DYS jurisdiction, Collings improved. His reading level improved to an eighth grade level. It was recommended that he receive special education and one-on-one help. In the next few years, he was placed in special education classes and a group home.

                    When Collings was eighteen, he lived with Dale, his biological father. Thereafter, Collings moved back and forth between Dale and his adoptive parents, Clarence and Betty. He admitted to sexually fondling his step-sister Julie when she was 11, and then again at 14 and 16. This behavior was consistent with someone who was sexually abused himself when younger.

                    At eighteen, Collings had his first child, Sarah. He would have three more children before having a vasectomy at age 28.

                    Over defense objection, the State asked Dale whether he believed in the death penalty and elicited that when Dale’s brother was murdered, Dale wanted to kill the person who murdered him.

                    For most of his adult life, Collings has had an alcohol problem.At times, he awoke in a ditch or someone’s yard without knowing how he got there.

                    At age 22, he obtained his GED and got a job.Collings also cared for Clarence in his ill health.. Clarence had a blood disorder that required him to get a shot once a week. Collings and his adoptive brother took turns giving Clarence his shots. His adoptive mother, Betty, died two weeks before Rowan’s death.

                    Dr. Wanda Draper, an expert in the field of human development, explained that Collings was handicapped developmentally by the lack of attachment with parental figures in the first six months of his life and beyond.
                    Collings did not meet developmental expectations growing up. His attachment problems continued when his adoptive family went through the trauma of losing a child, and then Collings suffered through his adoptive parents’ separation and adopted or, instead, returned to one of his birth parents.

                    As further mitigation, the defense presented evidence regarding David Spears’ possible involvement in Rowan’s death. Myrna Spears, David Spears’ mother, testified that on the night Rowan disappeared, her son David called her at about midnight, and in response, she drove her Suburban to his house. David left in his pickup, returned a short while later, and took the Suburban, while she stayed at the house. David returned by 7 a.m. Two dogs trained to alert at the scent of human remains alerted at the Suburban. Both dogs separately alerted at the driver’s side door and the left rear quadrant. Inside the Suburban, they alerted at the driver’s seat and rear cargo area.

                    Verdict and Sentence

                    The jury recommended death. It found that the murder involved torture and, as a result, was outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman, and that Rowan was killed as a result of her status as a potential witness/ The court imposed death. Notice of appeal was timely filed.


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                    The Turner Diaries RULES, The Turner Report drools

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Supreme Court rejects child-killer's request for rehearing on death penalty appeal

                      Supreme Court rejects child-killer's request for rehearing on death penalty appeal


                      http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2014/...d-killers.html
                      http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...1589#post11589
                      http://christian-identity.net/forum/...1589#post11589



                      .

                      The Missouri Supreme Court Tuesday rejected child-killer Chris Collings' motion for a rehearing of his appeal of his death penalty conviction.

                      Collings, 40, was sentenced to death for the November 2, 2007, murder of nine-year-old Rowan Ford, a fourth grader at Triway Elementary School in Stella.

                      The court heard arguments in the case January 8, with public defenders representing Collings asking that he either be granted a new trial, be sentenced to second degree murder instead of first degree, or resentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

                      The attorneys cited a number of reasons for the requests including the following, all of which were rejected by the judges.

                      -Collings did not confess voluntarily. "Law enforcement officers exploited the close friendship Collings had with Wheaton Police Chief Clinton Clark." The petition also says law enforcement took advantage of Collings' fear of vigilante justice.

                      -Clark kept Collings talking even though he was aware Collings had an attorney.

                      -The prosecution failed to prove an element of first degree murder, that Collings had "coolly reflected" before killing Rowan Ford. Testimony indicated that Collings "freaked out" when he realized that Rowan had recognized him after he raped her.

                      -The judge should not have allowed the prosecution to show "excessively gruesome and prejudicial" photos of Rowan Ford.

                      -The judge should have declared a mistrial after the prosecutor simulated the strangulation of Rowan Ford in front of the jury.

                      -Chris Collings has shown "deep remorse" and "accepted responsibility" for the murder.

                      .

                      Posted by Randy at 5:59 PM WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2014


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                      The Turner Diaries RULES, The Turner Report drools

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Lawyer: Rowan Ford's killer should be spared because he was drunk

                        Lawyer: Rowan Ford's killer should be spared because he was drunk


                        http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2015/...should-be.html
                        http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...3614#post13614
                        http://christian-identity.net/forum/...3614#post13614





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                        The Turner Diaries RULES, The Turner Report drools

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Court Upholds Conviction in Rowan Ford's Murder

                          Court Upholds Conviction in Rowan Ford's Murder

                          Updated: Mar 06, 2018 2:51 PM CST
                          By Stacie Strader



                          http://www.koamtv.com/story/37661260...n-fords-murder
                          http://christian-identity.net/forum/...7761#post17761
                          http://whitenationalist.org/forum/sh...7761#post17761




                          The perverted critter coonfessed to the rape-murder before trial.
                          .


                          The man convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford has lost his second appeal.

                          The Missouri Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence for Christopher Collings. Judges ruled unanimously today (March 6) to reject arguments that Christopher Collings' previous attorneys were not effective in defending him over the November 2007 death of Rowan Ford.

                          The girl's body was found in a cave in McDonald County in November of 2007, a week after she was reported missing from her Stella home. Her stepfather, David Spears, was also charged with murder and rape but pleaded guilty to reduced charges of child endangerment and hindering prosecution.

                          Collings' new lawyers argued that his previous attorneys didn't call enough expert witnesses and didn't challenge DNA evidence, among other things. But judges ruled the trial attorneys made reasonable decisions and that Collings' didn't prove the case would have ended differently.

                          Previous Stories:


                          http://www.koamtv.com/story/36798832...old-rowan-ford

                          http://www.koamtv.com/story/7309550/rowan-ford-death

                          http://www.koamtv.com/story/14053758...old-rowan-ford

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                          .

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