Stacey Lannert

I have always been interested in this case and while I am a bit surprised that I have not blogged about this case prior to now, I am glad that I did not because there has been a recent development in this case. I try to go back to cases that have updates and edit them, but I will be the first to admit that this does not always happen. I think this case interests me only because I am the same age as Stacey Lannert. In many of the documentary television shows you see on this case you will see a video that was made in which Stacey took investigators through her home and explained how she shot and killed her father. It is not a recreation, it is the actual video you see so you see the hairstyles, mannerisms and even décor at the time the crime was committed. Maybe I am just nostalgic about the time because it was, not just a more simpler time of life, but also a more adventurous time.

In the early morning of July 4, 1990 eighteen year old Stacey Lannert picked up a rifle in the home she shared with her younger sister, Christy and her father, Tom in St. John Missouri. Tom was passed out on the front room couch when Stacey fired the first shot at him. The bullet shattered his collarbone, but Tom was no longer asleep. Stacey says she closed her eyes and shot again. This time the bullet would kill Tom. The following day a friend helped her dispose of the rifle and she would call 911 and tell them that she had come home and found him dead, at first indicating she had no knowledge as to what happened.

It did not take long before Stacey confessed to Lt. Tom Schulte. For years Schulte had investigated child sex crimes for a lot of years and he sat and listened to Stacey. She would tell Schulte that the shooting was basically an end result of the abuse that she, and her sister had suffered at the hands of their father. According to Stacey her father had began touching her inappropriately when she was eight years old and he had raped her the first time when she was nine. About six months before the murder Stacey had moved out of the house and had moved to Guam with her mother but a few months later she received a desperate call from Christy begging her to come home. Christy would later say that she did not suffer the sexual abuse but had suffered both physical and emotional abuse. Christy would claim things such as being hit and pushed down the stairs and other forms of abuse. Stacey says she begged her father to allow Christy to move with her and their mother to Guam but Tom had refused, so fearing her sister would suffer the same abuse that she had for over nine years Stacey returned to St. John. She would later say she felt that this was all calculated by her father in order to keep her near him, have control over her and to ensure her silence.

Stacey would be taken back to the home in which she gave a video reenactment of what had happened in the early morning of July 4^th. The prosecutor would make much of this video saying that Stacey acted unaffected by the death of her father and pointed out that she chewed gum throughout the video. It is safe to say that the prosecutor, Robert McCulloch did not believe Stacey's story of abuse. Tom Schulte did however and it is likely because of this belief that McCulloch would not call Schulte to the stand at Stacey's trial.

Only on the rare occasion do you hear me call the prosecutor by name, this is one of those times. McCulloch has quite a history of his own in Missouri and I will go much more into him later. Just a few months after Stacey had murdered her father McCulloch was elected the district attorney and he remains in that position today. McCulloch has been extremely vocal in the fact that he believes Stacey is a cold blooded killer who murdered her father to not only hide the fact she was stealing money from him but also to obtain money through his estate and life insurance.

It seems a bit confusing as to what exactly the defense was allowed to present at Stacey's trial. She had been charged with first degree murder. Her sister Christy, who was fourteen (this according to appeals although other things said she was sixteen) at the time was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. The defense wanted to argue two points. One was that Stacey's case was akin to the “battered spouse syndrome” but the judge all but dismissed it and while allowed them to draw conclusions refused to allow them to use those words. The second was to argue self defense. But, the problem with that was that at the time Missouri's self defense law required that the person be in immediate danger when the murder was committed. Seeing as at the time Stacey fired the first shot her father was asleep, or passed out from alcohol, meant she was not in immediate danger. Again the defense was allowed to argue this but in the end the judge refused to give that instruction to the jury as an option.

For his part McCulloch argued, and apparently had some backing to prove some of his theory, that Stacey had mentioned to several people that she wanted her father killed and had allegedly attempted to hire someone to do it for her. He claimed that prior to the murder Stacey had been spending Tom's money “wildly” and had gone as far as forged some checks and used his credit cards without his knowledge. He would at some time acknowledge that Tom Lannert was not up for any Father of the Year awards but disputed that he had molested or abused his daughters. Part of that idea may have come from the fact that Stacey's mother had alleged that she knew of none of the physical or sexual abuse her daughters were claiming.

Stacey had claimed that she had attempted to tell a guidance counselor, a babysitter and even a psychiatrist over the years about the abuse but that no one had taken action on her behalf. One babysitter did testify at her trial that she suspected abuse when Stacey was about twelve but it was unclear what, if anything, she did about it. Of course the prosecution could easily point out that the babysitter's revelation was “convenient.”

In the end Stacey was convicted of first degree murder and given a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. While the jury had apparently been allowed to hear about some of the alleged abuse it was said that they were angered later to learn the extent of the allegations and that they had not been able to consider that in their deliberations. In fact, the judge had specifically told them that they were not to consider the abuse as a mitigating factor. Christy would plead guilty in April of 1991 and receive a sentence of five years. She served half of that sentence and was released from prison. Stacey continued to serve her sentence.

Over the next several years Stacey's case garnered a lot of attention. It appears that there had been significant proof that abuse had occurred within the home. Stacey had alleged that once the rapes began that it was sometimes as often as three times a week. It was said that she developed pelvic inflammatory disease “because of frequent rapes” and it would eventually leave her unable to have children. Detective Tom Schulte had told Stacey in the beginning that he believed her and would be there for her but she was confused as to why he was not called to testify at her trial. According to Schulte he had also expected to testify and that as the years went on he had not had contact with Stacey because he hoped that through appeals he would be contacted and he did not want anyone to think or say he had a conflict of interest. However it was Schulte who first asked the Governor to grant Stacey clemency when it appeared that all of Stacey's appeals were denied. My information states that this request sat on the desk of three governors, however it also stated that Bob Holden was in office when Schulte first requested this for Stacey. After Holden, Matt Blunt became the governor and just before he left office in January of 2009 he granted the clemency for Stacey, reducing her sentence from life to twenty years making her immediately eligible to be released.

Stacey was released from prison on January 16, 2009 and boy was Robert McCulloch ticked off! He let it be known that he thought Governor Blunt to be a “coward” and stated, “She was never sexually abused by her father or anyone else, and she ought to be back in the penitentiary and shame on Governor Blunt for letting her out.” McCulloch called Stacey a “manipulative liar who deserved to live out the rest of her life in prison.” He pointed out the “wild” spending, the forged checks and the credit card use. For the record Stacey had maintained that her father knew about the checks and the credit cards despite what McCulloch believes.

Stacey went on to establish a non-profit organization called Healing Sisters. It is an organization that helps aid women who have been abused. She has received a bachelors degree in psychology and in 2017 she obtained her law degree. In December of 2017 she became an assistant public defender in the Missouri State Public Defenders Office. In June of 2018, just before his resignation after a “sex scandal” Governor Eric Greitens granted Stacey a complete pardon. I am sure this lit a fire under Robert McCulloch but I saw nothing that he stated publicly about this. I suspect he was ready to run to the first microphone thrown in his face to proclaim how “outrageous” this act by the governor had been but he knew better at this point. If you want to know more about Stacey she has published a book called Redmption: A story of Sisterhood, Survival and Finding Freedom Behind Bars.

Robert McCulloch remains the district attorney in St. Louis Missouri, for now. He has often ran unopposed. As I was writing this I knew that he was up for re-election this year and decided I should make a quick look and see if there was an opponent this time. Not only does he have one in a man named Wesley Bell, the election is actually today (August 7, 2018). It is said that whoever wins this faces no opposition in November. Of course I will either update this later today or make sure it is not posted until I know the results. To be fair few prosecutors, especially one who has been in office as long as McCulloch, are unscathed when they are in office. Mistakes are often made and sometimes a prosecutor even becomes a scapegoat. I am not saying that is the case here exactly, I am only saying that maybe not everything that has landed on the shoulders of McCulloch over the years was always his fault. That being said, McCulloch garnered a lot of criticism just four days after his last election in August of 2014. That is when the case of Michael Brown began in Ferguson Missouri. We all know the case of Michael Brown, the African- American man who was shot and killed by a white officer and who's death caused riots within the city. The officer involved, Darren Wilson, was not indicted by a grand jury, nor was he cited for violating Brown's civil rights after an investigation by the U.S. DOJ. It has been alleged that McCulloch did what is called a “dump” to the grand jury. What this means is that evidence and information is given in such a large bulk that it is unreasonable that it could be adequately gone through in the time period given. This is often said to be a tactic sometimes used by prosecutors in trials where they are required to hand over all their evidence to the defense in hopes that the things that may help their side are buried and missed. It was also said that his own spokesperson admitted that not only was it odd that the police investigation had not concluded by the time McCulloch handed it to the grand jury (meaning all of the evidence was not in yet), but also unusual that he was not asking for a specific charge. It appears he just simply asked them to look and see if they found a charge. It was also said that this was the fifth time in his close to twenty-five years in office that he sent information to a grand jury in a police shooting and it was the fifth time they had failed to indict. But, to be fair, while there was much criticism in his treatment of the case he also had some support.

I have been watching the results all evening long, at least the best that I could but it is getting late and I have an early morning tomorrow. At last check Wesley Bell was leading in the polls 53% to 49%. There is a lot of talk on Missouri sites that it appears that at least in that state they are moving away from established politicians, no matter what party they are serving. Let us hope this is the right move not just for Missouri but for our country as a whole.

It is official, Wesley Bell has won the elected. After being in power for twenty-seven years, McCulloch has been ousted as prosecutor.