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Thread: David Spears Gets 11 Years in 2009 MO Rape/Murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford

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    David Spears Gets 11 Years in 2009 MO Rape/Murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford

    The stepfather of a 9-year-old girl whose body was found Friday in a hillside cave in southwest Missouri was arrested in her death, authorities said.

    Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said 24-year-old David Spears was arrested in the death of Rowan Ford.

    "The stepfather was a possible suspect," Copeland told The Associated Press. "I will confirm that he has been arrested, as well as one of his friends."

    Copeland said a 24-year-old man from Wheaton, in adjacent Barry County, was also arrested. Charges had not been filed as of Friday night.

    Rowan's body was found on private land about 10 miles south of the girl's hometown of Stella, a village of about 200 people, Copeland said.

    Authorities believe she was killed in adjacent Barry County and her body then taken to nearby McDonald County, he said.

    Copeland referred questions to the Barry County sheriff, who did not immediately return a phone call.

    Copeland had said earlier that authorities were still determining how the girl died.

    "We know we have a homicide," Copeland said, declining to elaborate.

    The McDonald County deputy who found the body had searched the area on his way to work after recalling that there was a cavern there, Copeland said. The FBI was gathering the evidence at the scene.

    Stella Mayor Bill Alsop, who answered the phone at the family's home Friday, said the girl's mother was "pretty shook up" when Copeland came to the home that morning and told her the body was very likely Rowan's.

    "He told her they found the body of the little girl, and they were 99 percent sure it was her daughter," Alsop said.

    Rowan was reported missing after her mother, Colleen Spears, returned home early Nov. 3 from a night shift at a Wal-Mart.

    David Spears told investigators that he and two male friends were with Rowan the night before until they went out around 10:45 p.m. He returned home around midnight but did not check on the girl, Copeland said.

    David Spears also later told authorities that he called his mother sometime after 1 a.m. and asked to use her vehicle, Copeland has said. She took it to him about half an hour later, then stayed at his house while her son left in her vehicle for about 5 1/2 hours, Copeland has said.

    Copeland also has said that David Spears has not been able to explain what he did during that time.

    David Spears declined to comment. He has been staying at his mother's house outside Stella since Rowan's disappearance.

    "He's pretty torn up. He's extremely distraught. He's been crying quite a bit," his mother, Myrna Spears, said.

    His mother declined to answer any questions about what happened that night. David Spears previously has said that it was wrong for him to leave the girl alone.

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    Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for two men charged in the rape and murder of a 9-year-old southwest Missouri girl.

    Barry County prosecutor Johnnie Cox filed notice with the court Monday that he plans to seek the death penalty for David Spears and Chris Collings. Spears was Rowan Ford’s stepfather, and Collings was his friend.

    Both men have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, forcible rape and statutory rape.

    Rowan disappeared from her home in the small town of Stella in November. Her body was found days later in a cave.

    Prosecutors say both men have confessed to the crime, but authorities are trying to reconcile discrepancies between their accounts.

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    Hearings continue in Spears’ murder case


    WAYNESVILLE, Mo. —

    Court hearings continue today and Friday for a Stella man accused of raping and killing his 9-year-old stepdaughter in November 2007.

    The hearings for David Wesley Spears started Wednesday. Spears and Chris Collings are accused of raping and killing 9-year-old Rowan Ford in early November 2007 at Collings’ home in Wheaton, then throwing the body of the Triway Elementary student down a sink hole in eastern McDonald County.

    The case was moved from Barry County to Pulaski County on a change of venue. Judge Tracy Storie is hearing arguments on motions in the case.

    Spears’ defense team is trying to get his taped audio confession thrown out on the basis that it violated Spears’ constitutional rights against self-incrimination. According to Springfield television station KY3, at issue is when Spears was read the Miranda warning and when he requested an attorney be present. The confession was obtained by the Newton County Sheriff’s Department.

    Prosecutor Johnnie Cox told the television station it was up to a judge to decide whether a defendant’s statement was admissible, adding that there was enough evidence to proceed with the trial. Cox has asked for the death penalty.

    Once motion hearings end on Friday, Spears will be back in court on June 21 for a final pre-trial conference before trial begins on July 12. Ten days have been set aside for the trial, which is expected to conclude on July 23.

    Collins is expected to go to trial in January in Rolla, with his next court appearance to be at a motion hearing on May 17.

    Miss Ford had been missing since about 10:45 p.m. Nov. 2, and was the subject of a massive manhunt that involved local law enforcement agencies, volunteers, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The search included areas of Newton, McDonald and Barry counties. About 50 federal agents and 25 members of the highway patrol were involved in the case.

    On Nov. 8, Spears led Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges to the site. At one time, Spears worked as a mechanic and salesman for Bridges’ automotive business. Both men looked inside the sinkhole, which is located about 10 miles south of Stella near Mike’s Creek near Powell.
    Bridges told the Neosho Daily News he saw some items inside the cavern-like area which raised suspicions, and contacted FBI agents. They, in turn, contacted the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department. Deputies Jake Boles and Mike Hall checked out the sink hole the following morning and discovered the girl’s body about 20 feet below ground.

    “I definitely wanted to search the cave and I think, subconsciously, that David did, too. He took me to the cave for some reason,” Bridges said. “I guess his first thought was I used to be the sheriff, and could help. David kept telling me ‘Maybe she’s at a friend’s house.’ “

    According to Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland, Spears and Collings both confessed to the rape and murder of the child.

    “The story we got was that Chris came over and got the little girl and took her to his home in Wheaton,” Copeland said. “This was during the first time that David was gone.”

    http://www.neoshodailynews.com/news/x1042536021/Hearings-continue-in-Spears-murder-case

    Earlier Case Coverage

    Spears to go to trial in 2010

    Waynesville, Mo. —

    A trial date has been set for a Stella man accused of raping and murdering his 9-year-old stepdaughter.

    David Wesley Spears, 25, will go to trial in July 2010 on charges he raped and murdered 9-year-old Rowan Ford on Nov. 3, 2007. The case was moved to Pulaski County from Barry County this summer on a change of venue.

    At a hearing Wednesday, Circuit Judge Tracy Storie granted a prosecution motion to force Spears to submit a hair sample for DNA testing. The sample will be compared with hairs found on Rowan's body.

    Spears and family friend Christopher Collings are accused of abducting, raping and killing the girl.
    Her body was found in a sinkhole in McDonald County nearly a week after she was reported missing from her Stella home. A massive search was conducted by local law enforcement agencies, volunteers, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

    Collings, 33, is expected to go to trial in March 2010 in Phelps County.

    Both men are accused of first-degree murder, a Class A felony, forceable rape and first-degree statutory rape, both unclassified felonies.

    Barry County Prosecutor Johnnie Cox has said he will ask for the death penalty in the case.

    Wednesday was the first time that Rowan's mother, Colleen, was not in the courtroom for hearings in the two cases. She divorced Spears after he was charged.

    http://www.neoshodailynews.com/news/x1049843009/Spears-to-go-to-trial-in-2010

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    Collings' trial has been set for Jan. 2011, and Spears' has been pushed to Aug. 2011.

    http://www.ky3.com/news/local/95061274.html

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    David Spears, stepfather of murder victim Rowan Ford, seeks trial delay, change of venue

    David Spears wants a delay and a change of venue for his trial for the murder and rape of 9-year-old Rowan Ford in November 2007. Rowan was Spears' stepdaughter.

    Spears and his friend, Christopher Collings, are charged with taking Rowan from her home in Stella, in Newton County, to Collings' home in Barry County, where investigators think they raped and killed her. Her body turned up in a sinkhole or cave in McDonald County a week after she disappeared.

    Because of extensive publicity about the case in Barry County, a circuit judge moved both cases away from Cassville. Collings' case ended up in Phelps County Circuit Court in Rolla, and Spears' case ended up in Pulaski County Circuit Court in Waynesville. Prosecutors plan to seek a death penalty against each man if they get a first-degree murder conviction.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys decided they need to try Collings first. He was scheduled for trial in April but attorneys and Circuit Judge Mary Sheffield couldn't find enough potential jurors who said they hadn't already formed some kind of opinion about the case. Collings is now scheduled for trial next February with a jury from Platte County on the north side of Kansas City.

    Spears is scheduled for trial in August in Waynesville. In a motion for a change of venue filed last week, his attorneys cite the difficulty in finding a fair jury for Collings' case, and note Waynesville is closer to Springfield and KY3 (the primary source of the extensive publicity, the motion says). They say the search for unbiased jurors in Collings’ trial showed more jurors had heard of Spears than Collings.

    In their motion for a continuance, the attorneys say they’ve been granted permission to do independent testing on some of the prosecutors' evidence, but they’ve held off on that testing until after Collings is tried, so as “not to create undue evidentiary problems with chain of custody.” Because Collings’ trial is delayed, they said that will delay their opportunity to conduct that independent forensic testing, which they say is critical to their case.

    Spears case is before Circuit Judge Tracy Storie. He’s scheduled motions hearing for June 15 and July 27.

    http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-david-sp...,7574820.story

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    Trial for Rowan Ford's stepfather is delayed 15 months

    Another delay has been announced in the Rowan Ford murder case.

    As anticipated, the trial of David Spears has been postponed until October 2012 due to concerns over selecting a jury pool. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tracy Storie ruled last Wednesday that Spears' jury will be selected in Clay County near Kansas City and brought to Waynesville for the trial.

    On-line court records indicate Spears' trial will begin on Oct. 30, 2012, with jury selection. Opening statements are scheduled to begin on Nov. 5, 2012, which will be almost five years after Spears was arrested for the kidnap, rape and murder of his 9-year-old stepdaughter, Rowan Ford, in November 2007.

    This is the third time Spears' trial has been postponed. His most recent trial date was set for this coming August.

    Spears and Christopher Collings are accused of sexually assaulting and raping Ford in Collings' trailer house in Wheaton and then murdering her. Ford's body was found in a sinkhole in McDonald County a week after her mother and Spears reported her missing. Both men have confessed to the crime.

    The case has garnered intense media attention, and due to the publicity, a mistrial was declared in Collings' murder trial, which began in April in Phelps County in Rolla.

    After three days of jury selection, Circuit Judge Mary Sheffield decided the pool of jurors was not large enough to select a jury and declared a mistrial.

    Collings' trial was reset for February 2012. His jury will be selected from Platte County with the case to be tried in Rolla.

    The case is being prosecuted by Barry County Prosecutor Johnnie Cox and Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Bock. Collings and Spears are being represented by the Missouri Public Defenders Office. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty against both men.

    http://www.cassville-democrat.com/story/1738436.html

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    Defense hopes to use Collings’ confessions in Spears’ trial

    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.”

    http://www.joplinglobe.com/crime_and...n-Spears-trial
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    Stepfather of Rowan Ford due in court for pre-trial hearing

    The former stepfather of Rowan Ford is due in court tomorrow ahead of his trial this fall.

    David Spears is one of two men accused of raping and killing the nine-year-old girl back in 2007. His trial is set to begin in November.

    Spears' pre-trial hearing comes after he was called to the stand back in March during the capital murder trial of his co-defendant Christopher Collings. In Phelps County Circuit Court, Spears decided to not testify.

    Meanwhile, Collings was convicted of first-degree murder and received the death penalty. His lawyers filed an appeal after that verdict came down.

    Searchers found Ford's body in a cave in November 2007, leading to the arrest of Collings and Spears

    http://www.kspr.com/news/kspr-stepfa...,5647087.story
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    Prosecutor explains plea-bargain deal in case stemming from Rowan Ford’s death

    Johnny Cox, Barry County Prosecutor, in a statement this morning, explained why first-degree murder, forcible rape and statutory rape charges were dismissed against David Spears following the 2007 death of Rowan Ford, of Stella.

    Cox said that in the nearly five years the case has been pending, there has been no evidence to support David Spears’ confession.

    In fact, he said all physical evidence has either failed to implicate Spears or the results were inconsistent with statements Spears made to Newton and Barry county investigators.

    Evidence from the rape kit also did not implicate Spears, and more recent testing indicated the rapist had had a vasectomy, which did not fit Spears.

    Chris Collings, who already is facing the death penalty for his earlier conviction in Ford’s rape and murder, had had a vasectomy.

    Collings has maintained, from his first statement to his final statement, that he acted alone in raping and strangling Ford, Cox noted.

    “In David Spears’ trial, the state would be in a position to have to present David Spears’ statement and argue its validity,” Cox said. “This would put the state in a position of arguing inconsistent theories of who actually strangled Rowan Ford. The state would have to argue that both versions were true even if both could not be true.”

    Cox explained that that type of strategy is prohibited by Missouri and federal courts, and can cause convictions to be overturned because it violates due process rights of defendants.

    As part of a plea bargain, Spears — Ford’s stepfather — will plead guilty to child endangerment and hindering prosecution charges. He will receive a seven-year sentence on the child endangerment charge and a four-year sentence on the hindering prosecution charge.

    The sentences will run consecutively.

    The news came this morning before the start of a pre-trial conference at the Pulaski County Courthouse in Waynesville, Mo.

    http://www.joplinglobe.com/crime_and...n-Ford-s-death
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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