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Thread: Christopher Leroy Collings - Missouri Death Row

  1. #31
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Collings Appeals Death Sentence and Conviction in Murder of 9-Year-Old Rowan Ford

    By Lisa Olliges
    Fox 14 News

    STELLA, MO - Today marked the second Missouri Supreme court appeal for Christopher Collings. He was earlier convicted and sentenced to death for the 2007 rape and murder of nine-year-old Rowan Ford.

    An attorney from the public defenders office in Columbia offered arguments today before Missouri Supreme court justices asking them to prevent Collings’ execution and overturn his conviction.

    Collings’ attorney said his conviction was based on two legal fictions that went unchallenged by his previous counsel. One, that he was sober when committing the crime and the second that his brain was able to form accurate memories to offer a confession considering his history of substance abuse including the night of Ford’s murder.

    Because it is a death penalty case Collings had a previous direct appeal to the state’s high court. That appeal was denied.

    The new appeal comes just one day before the tenth anniversary of the discovery of Rowan Ford's body on November 9th, 2007.

    Her body had been thrown into a hole in the ground in McDonald county known as Fox Cave.

    The appeal and the anniversary bring up raw emotions for everyone in Rowan’s hometown of Stella, Missouri. Some there say the crime put the town on the map for all the wrong reasons and they long for justice.

    Becca Hance said, "It hits you hard especially when it’s one of your own. And this magnitude of tragedy, it's something you never forget."

    Hance walked Rowan home from the Stella Baptist church Wednesday nights. It’s what she called a safe place for Rowan who arrived before everyone else and sat on the steps. Ten years later she said the hurt doesn't stop.

    Hance explained, "Until justice has been one hundred percent served, I don’t think it will ever go away." Becca and others aren’t happy with the second supreme court appeal for convicted killer Chris Collings.

    She said, “No amount of punishment will every justify what happened to Rowan and he shouldn’t get the option to change his sentencing."

    Nine year old Rowan was taken from her Stella home the night of November 2nd, 2007. Collings confessed to raping and strangling her and then dumping her body in McDonald county.

    Newton county Sheriff Chris Jennings said, “In all my years of law enforcement, that’s probably the most horrendous crime, not just because it was a child that was murdered, but how she was murdered. So, yes, I’ve never forgotten about it." Jennings was then Chief deputy on the case and keeps Rowan’s photo id in his card case.

    He said, "I’ve carried it , like I said every day since she first disappeared."

    Ken Copeland was sheriff at the time of the case which he still finds upsetting. He said Collings got a fair trial with two top notch public defenders. He says it’s a shame there are so many appeals when Rowan didn’t have a chance to appeal for her life.

    Tracey Welch shares his sentiment, “She had no chance. The things those men or that man did to her were unthinkable."

    Welch was principal at Tri-way elementary, Rowans school and says Collings took the life of an innocent child.

    Welch elaborated, "Who had nothing but goodness and joy in her heart. And he stole that from her violently and brutally with no thought of what she was going through, none, none at all. And he killed her because ‘Oh my God! She might have known who I was.’ I have no sympathy for that."

    The community is not just upset about Collings and the appeal . But that Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears who was another suspect, is now out of jail having plead guilty to a lesser charge of endangering the welfare of a child.

    Becca Hance lamented, “He’s living life freely…Chris has an appeal and Rowan, her life was cut short at nine and that’s just not, just not fair."

    Attorneys for Collings also dispute his confession because Spears also confessed. Public defender's say attorneys during trial should have called attention to differences in those confessions and the fact that k9 officers pointed to a vehicle Spears borrowed from his mother.

    Rowan's mother said in ten years nothing’s changed. She said Rowan hasn't been vindicated. She hopes the high court denies Collings appeal a second time.

    Rowan was killed after Collings,Spears and another man had a night of drinking and smoking marijuana. Intoxication and substance abuse are part of the basis of Collings appeal.

    Audio of today's supreme court arguments can be heard online. Click here to listen.

    http://www.fox14tv.com/story/3679883...old-rowan-ford
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  2. #32
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Court upholds death penalty case in Stella girl's murder

    The Joplin Globe

    JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A conviction and the death sentence in the murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford 11 years ago was upheld Tuesday by the Missouri Supreme Court.

    The court did not find any reason to overturn the conviction of Christopher Collings, 42, who is in custody at the Mineral Point Correctional Center.

    His attorney argued in November that at Collings' jury trial, his attorneys failed to investigate his history of alcohol abuse and drug addiction to provide the basis for the defense's case.

    The state argued it was not a failure but a strategic trial decision. The court was told that the defense explored the question of raising that issue by hiring at least three trained professionals on alcohol intoxication and abuse as consultants but did not call any of them to testify.

    Collings was convicted of first-degree murder in the sexual assault and strangulation of the girl. She had been taken from her home in Stella in the middle of the night. After a week of searches, her body was discovered in the bottom of a cave in McDonald County. A ligature was used in her strangulation.

    Collings' appellate attorney, Amy Bartholow, told the state's high court that her client's conviction was based on two legal fictions: that Collings acted as a sober being that night and that his brain was able to form accurate memories on which his later statements to police were based.

    "Christopher's trial counsel failed to introduce significant evidence of his lifelong addiction to alcohol and drugs, and his severe intoxication on the night of the crime to rebut the state's evidence of deliberation or to challenge the inference of deliberation that the state drew from his confessions," Bartholow told the court.

    Bartholow told the court there was reason to believe that Collings may have consumed the equivalent of at least 30 beers and that such consumption was almost certain to have caused a blackout level of impairment of his brain and the loss of the ability to form reliable memories. She claimed that the statements Collings made to investigators are "the only evidence against him" but are based on memories that the court should not have considered reliable because of his level of intoxication the night of the crime.

    Collings confessed to the crime and gave a statement detailing how he went to the girl's home and took her, sleeping, to his home in Wheaton and raped her. He told authorities he kept the lights off and did not speak in hopes she would not recognize him, but when he took her back outside to return her home, he saw by the look on her face she recognized him. Then he took a wire from his truck and strangled her, burning it and other items involved in the crime, such as the bedding, after he dumped her body.

    However, the girl's stepfather, David Spears, made what investigators would later determine to be a false confession to the crime. Spears' claim that he killed the girl was used as the defense at Collings' trial. Spears in 2012 pleaded guilty to reduced charges of child endangerment and hindering prosecution, and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

    http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/loca...78833a141.html
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  3. #33
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On April 23, 2018, Collings filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/mi...cv08000/139359

  4. #34
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Collings' petition for certiorari.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Missouri
    Case Numbers: (SC96118)
    Decision Date: March 6, 2018
    Rehearing Denied: April 17, 2018

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....c/18-5278.html

  5. #35
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    On September 30, 2022, Collings was denied a certificate of appealability by the Federal District Court regarding his habeas petition.

    https://cases.justia.com/federal/dis...?ts=1664694250
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  6. #36
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    On January 12, 2023, Collings filed an appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci...ts/ca8/23-1064
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  7. #37
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    COA denied by the 8th Circuit June 28, 2023.

    En banc rehearing denied September 8, 2023.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...on%20FINAL.pdf
    Last edited by Julius; 11-29-2023 at 05:37 AM.

  8. #38
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    8 months at circuit? What rocket docket is this?
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  9. #39
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    He killed a little girl so maybe that’s why?
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  10. #40
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    Final petition for a writ of certiorari filed February 5, 2024.

    http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...opher+Collings

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