Share on LinkedIn

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - Several high-profile innocence cases involving Missouri inmates are likely to be decided within weeks of each other.

SANDRA HEMME

Last month, a Missouri judge ordered Sandra Hemme be released or retried within the next 30 days. The Missouri Attorney General’s subsequently asked the Missouri Court of Appeals to review the judge’s order.

Livingston County Judge Ryan W. Horsman originally agreed that Hemme had ineffective legal council and that important evidence was not disclosed at the time of her original trial. Horsman found “the evidence establishing Ms. Hemme’s innocence to be clear and convincing.”

Hemme has been in prison since she was convicted of a 1980 murder that happened in St. Joseph, Missouri. A 31-year-old librarian named Patricia Jeschke was found dead inside her apartment.

Hemme’s legal team point out that she was a psychiatric patient at the time of the investigation. St. Joseph police questioned her eight different times over two weeks. Her attorneys claim the police interviews took place when she was so medicated she couldn’t even hold her head up. And each time, her story was different.

Hemme’s attorneys believe a St. Joseph police officer, Michael Holman, is likely responsible for Jeschke’s death. He has since died.

CHRIS DUNN

A St. Louis court convicted Dunn in 1991 for shooting and killing 15-year-old Ricco Rogers on Labadie near Clara in the Wells Goodfellow neighborhood in 1990.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office filed a petition to vacate Dunn’s conviction in 2023 after initially rescinding the petition former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner filed.

Dunn attended an evidentiary hearing in May. The judge overseeing the case will decide on Dunn’s freedom in the coming weeks.

KEN MIDDLETON

Ken Middleton was found guilty of killing his wife, Kathy, inside their Blue Springs home on February 12, 1990.

Middleton claimed his wife dropped a gun and it misfired. He said he was not the one who filed the fatal shot.

Middleton will have a new evidentiary hearing on July 24, and it could lead to his freedom after decades in prison.

Middleton was offered an Alford plea, which means he could have maintained his innocence but admitted the prosecutor had strong enough evidence to secure a guilty verdict. Middleton refused the deal.

MARCELLUS WILLIAMS

Marceullus Williams is set to be executed in September for the fatal stabbing of Felicia Gayle, a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter turned social worker. Gayle was attacked at her home in University City.

The hearing on the motion to vacate WIlliams’ conviction is set for August 21 at the St. Louis County Courthouse in Clayton. St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate the conviction in late January.

In 2017, Gov, Eric Gretiens issued a last-minute stay of execution and ordered a Board of Inquiry to look into the case. In 2023, Gov. Mike Parson dissolved the board.

The Midwest Innocence Project then asked a court to invalidate Parson’s order. In early January, Bell’s office sent a letter asking the Missouri Supreme Court to delay setting an execution date.