Stacey Lannert

Last updated

Stacey Lannert
Born
Stacey Ann Lannert

(1972-05-28) May 28, 1972 (age 52)
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S
Occupation(s)Founder and counselor, Healing Sisters support group/non-profit, St. Louis, MO
Criminal statusReleased
Motive Sexual abuse
Conviction(s) First degree murder
Criminal penalty Life imprisonment; commuted to 20 years imprisonment

Stacey Ann Lannert (born May 28, 1972) is an American woman convicted of the murder of her father, Tom Lannert, when she was 18 years old. [1] She testified that he had sexually abused her since she was eight years old. Sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, she served 18 years.

Contents

On January 10, 2009, outgoing Missouri Governor Matt Blunt commuted Lannert's sentence and that of another woman convicted under similar circumstances. He said, "After an exhaustive review of the facts in both cases, I am commuting the sentences of Stacey Lannert and Charity Carey, who suffered extensive abuse before they took action against the men who raped them and subjected them to other horrible physical and emotional abuse." [2] Lannert's new sentence of 20 years made her eligible for immediate conditional release, and she was released on January 16, 2009. [2]

Lannert founded a resource website and non-profit organization, Healing Sisters, to aid women who have suffered abuse. In 2011, she published a memoir about her experiences, Redemption: A Story of Sisterhood, Survival, and Finding Freedom Behind Bars.

Early life and education

Stacey Lannert was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1972, the daughter of Deb Underwood and Thomas Lannert. She has said that she was close to her father and he made her feel special, but he was drinking to excess and started sexually abusing her when she was eight, and raped her at nine. [2] Her parents divorced when she was young. Although she tried to tell her mother and a babysitter about her father's rapes, she did not have the language to make them understand, and he had threatened her to keep her quiet. Her sister Christy, two years younger, has said their father physically abused and beat her from when she was in first grade, becoming especially violent when drinking. [2]

Stacey Lannert went to live with her mother, then in Guam, six months before the murder. Her sister Christy begged her to return, and Lannert tried to persuade her father to let Christy live with her and her mother. He would not let her go. [2]

The crime and the trial

At the age of 18, in the town of St. John, Missouri, Lannert shot her father twice while he was sleeping on a sofa. After confessing to killing him, she said that he had repeatedly raped and abused her as a child, threatening her so she would maintain secrecy. She said that, based on fears for her sister, she had decided to kill him to stop him. [2]

She testified that on July 4, 1990, she and her sister got home late, entering the house via a basement window at approximately 4:15–4:30 a.m. Seeing a rifle, she decided to kill her father. Finding her father asleep on the sofa, she shot him. This shot broke his collarbone and startled him awake. In fear, Stacey closed her eyes and shot again. The next day, she consulted with an adult friend, who encouraged her and helped her to dispose of the murder weapon. She called the police, initially pretending to have found her father dead on the sofa upon returning home, but then confessed the murder to Lt. Tom Schulte, saying it was because of the years of abuse she had suffered.

Stacey Lannert was charged with first degree murder and other felonies. Lannert's lawyer offered the defense of insanity or mental defect after his attempt to use the "battered spouse syndrome" in her defense. In a pre-trial ruling, the court limited mention of "battered spouse syndrome" but allowed the defendant to make "an offer of proof of self-defense". The St. Louis County prosecutor, Bob McCulloch, never called Schulte to testify, although he was the first official to talk with Lannert and had years of experience with sexual abuse victims. [2]

The prosecutors alleged that she murdered her father because she wanted his money. Lannert claimed that her father had sexually abused her from the age of eight. [2] She said although she had reported the abuse to her guidance counselor, babysitter, and psychiatrist, no one took action to help her.

During his instructions to the jury, the judge refused to include any claim of self-defense: "[Under] Missouri law, the self-defense argument was not valid because she wasn't in actual danger at the moment she pulled the trigger." [2] The judge concluded that there was not any basis in the evidence for her claim of self-defense.

Despite several expert witnesses having testified and agreed during Lannert's trial (and later appeal) that Lannert showed signs of abuse, the jury found her guilty on December 15, 1990, and later in 1992 and sentenced her to life imprisonment, without (as required by applicable law) the possibility of parole.

Her sister, Christy, was tried and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. She was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. She was released on parole after serving two and a half years.

Time served and appeals

After the judge's sentencing, some members of the jury expressed outrage that facts of sexual and physical abuse suffered by Lannert had not been introduced at the trial. The presiding judge, the Hon. Steven H. Goldman, issued this statement regarding Stacey Lannert's case:

[The] sentence is severe for a 20 year old. It is also somewhat surprising considering the evidence of sexual abuse by the victim's father...[a] conventional life sentence would be more appropriate from a comparison standpoint. [3]

The Missouri Court of Appeals found in favor of the trial judge. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, issued this statement after Lannert filed a petition for appeal:

The 'absence of aggression or provocation on the part of the defender' element of the Missouri self-defense statute does not articulate a time frame during which the initial act of aggression and the act of self-defense must occur. It is therefore deeply troubling that the jury was not completely informed of the scope of the abuse Lannert suffered, her fear, or her rage that her sister may also have been victimized by their father. This evidence of battered spouse syndrome might have placed Lannert's actions in proper context, and may have allowed a jury to conclude that Lannert was not the initial aggressor on the night of her father's death, potentially resulting in a very different outcome than what she faces today."[ dead link ] [3]

On March 11, 2003, the court ruled in favor of the original trial judge, though "reluctantly." It held that Lannert's appeal failed before the cited standards:

Deadly force may be used in self-defense only when there is (1) an absence of aggression or provocation on the part of the defender, (2) a real, or apparently real, necessity for the defender to kill in order to save himself from an immediate danger of serious bodily injury or death, (3) a reasonable cause for the defender's belief in such necessity, and (4) an attempt by the defender to do all within his power consistent with his personal safety to avoid the danger and the need to take a life.

The court rejected Lannert's position that "a man who raped his daughter, when she was in the third grade, made him 'the initial aggressor', and the author of his own doom". More crucially, the court noted that the battered spouse syndrome does not amount to a defense in itself, but is a support for a claim of self-defense, indicating the frame of mind in which the defendant finds herself at the time of the act. The court declined to override Missouri's rules for jury instruction or interpretation of the battered spouse syndrome law.

Lannert, after exhausting all of her appeals, sought from Missouri Governor Matt Blunt either commutation of her sentence to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years (she had already served 18 years) or pardon. She had gained support for clemency. [3] On January 10, 2009, the outgoing governor announced the commutation, after completing an "exhaustive review of the evidence," in which he determined that Lannert had suffered extensive abuse by her father, Thomas Lannert. In view of time served, Stacey Lannert was soon released from prison. [4] McCulloch has said he does not believe her claims of abuse. [2]

Lannert was described as having been a 'model prisoner,' active in many different community projects, as well as helping other survivors of incest and abuse. [5] She also trained service dogs for the handicapped, [2] in addition to being president of the Outreach program; an organization that brings troubled teens to prison to meet inmates with the incentive to warn them to take a different path in life.

Stacey Lannert has since founded Healing Sisters, a resource website and non-profit organization to aid women who have suffered abuse, as well as to work to end sexual abuse in the United States. [6] She has appeared as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 14, 2009; [7] The Joy Behar Show on March 16, 2011; and Piers Morgan Tonight on April 20, 2011. [8] In 2011 she published a memoir, written with Kristen Kemp: Redemption: A Story of Sisterhood, Survival, and Finding Freedom Behind Bars.

Related Research Articles

The abuse defense is a criminal law defense in which the defendant argues that a prior history of abuse justifies violent retaliation. While the term most often refers to instances of child abuse or sexual assault, it also refers more generally to any attempt by the defense to use a syndrome or societal condition to deflect responsibility away from the defendant. Sometimes the concept is referred to as the abuse excuse, in particular by the critics of the idea that guilty people may use past victimization to diminish the responsibility for their crimes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyle and Erik Menéndez</span> American brothers convicted of murdering their parents

Joseph Lyle Menéndez and Erik Galen Menéndez are American brothers who were convicted in 1996 of the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menéndez.

Battered woman syndrome (BWS) is a pattern of signs and symptoms displayed by a woman who has suffered persistent intimate partner violence—psychological, physical, or sexual—from her male partner. It is classified in the ICD-9 as battered person syndrome, but is not in the DSM-5. It may be diagnosed as a subcategory of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Victims may exhibit a range of behaviors, including self-isolation, suicidal thoughts, and substance abuse, and signs of physical injury or illness, such as bruises, broken bones, or chronic fatigue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Tracie McBride</span> American murder case

On February 18, 1995, 19-year-old American soldier Tracie Joy McBride was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by 44-year-old American soldier Louis Jones Jr. in Texas. Jones abducted McBride from Goodfellow Air Force Base and raped her at his house before bludgeoning her to death under a highway bridge in Coke County. He later sexually assaulted his ex-wife Sandra Lane and was arrested on March 1, and the ensuing police investigation found that he was also responsible for raping and murdering McBride. Jones was tried and convicted in the U.S. federal court system for kidnapping resulting in death; his crime was a federal case because it had begun on a military base and because the rape was the prime aspect to the murder, which made it a capital offense. Following his initial denials, Jones eventually confessed that he had raped McBride in addition to murdering her, and was sentenced to death. He subsequently attempted to contest his sentencing on the grounds that he had been suffering from Gulf War syndrome, but his appeals were rejected. On March 18, 2003, the 53-year-old Jones was executed by lethal injection.

William LaFortune is an American politician who served as the 37th Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma from 2002 to 2006 and is currently a district judge in Tulsa County.

Johnny Paul Penry is a Texas prisoner serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment without parole for rape and murder. He was on death row between 1980 and 2008, and his case generated discussion about the appropriateness of the death penalty for offenders who are thought to be intellectually disabled.

Mariticide literally means the killing of one's own husband. It can refer to the act itself or the person who carries it out. It can also be used in the context of the killing of one's own boyfriend. In current common law terminology, it is used as a gender-neutral term for killing one's own spouse or significant other of either sex. The killing of a wife or girlfriend is called uxoricide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Edward Duncan</span> American serial killer (1963–2021)

Joseph Edward Duncan III was an American convicted serial killer and child molester who was on death row in federal prison following the 2005 kidnappings and murders of members of the Groene family of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He was also serving 11 consecutive sentences of life without parole for the 1997 murder of Anthony Martinez of Beaumont, California. Additionally, Duncan confessed to — but had not been charged with — the 1996 murder of two girls, Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias, in Seattle, Washington. At the time of the attack on the Groene family, Duncan was on the run from a child molestation charge in Minnesota.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom</span> 2007 carjacking, rape, and murder of a couple in Knoxville, Tennessee

Channon Gail Christian, aged 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom Jr., aged 23, were from Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. They were kidnapped on the evening of January 6, 2007, when Christian's vehicle was carjacked. The couple were taken to a rental house. Both of them were raped, tortured, and murdered. Four males and one female were arrested, charged, and convicted in the case. In 2007, a grand jury indicted Letalvis Darnell Cobbins, Lemaricus Devall Davidson, George Geovonni Thomas, and Vanessa Lynn Coleman on counts of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder. Also in 2007, Eric DeWayne Boyd was indicted by a federal grand jury of being an accessory to a carjacking, resulting in serious bodily injury to another person and misprision of a felony. In 2018, Boyd was indicted on state-level charges of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Blair (serial killer)</span> American serial killer (1961–2024)

Terry Anthony Blair was an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, although investigators believed that there were additional unidentified victims.

Susan Lucille Wright is an American convicted murderer from Houston, Texas, who made headlines in 2003 for stabbing her husband, Jeff Wright, 193 times in an act of mariticide and then burying his body in their backyard. She was convicted of murder in 2004, and was given a 20-year sentence at the Crain Unit in Gatesville, Texas. She was denied parole on June 12, 2014, and July 24, 2017. She was granted parole in July 2020 and released from prison on December 30, 2020.

Brigitte Harris is an American woman from Queens, New York, who was convicted of manslaughter in the killing and castration of her father, Eric Goodridge, in her Rockaway apartment. Both Harris and her sister, Carleen Goodridge, claimed to have been raped and sexually abused by their father since childhood. Due to her abuse allegations, Brigitte received an outpouring of support from public figures including U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and state senators Diane Savino and Eric Adams. Harris was sentenced to five to fifteen years in prison, but was released after serving three years.

Nancy Ann Seaman is an American woman and former teacher at Longacre Elementary School in Farmington Hills, Michigan, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2005 for killing her husband with a hatchet. Jurors rejected her argument that she killed her husband in self-defense and decided that the murder was premeditated. She is currently serving her life sentence at the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in Canada.

The murder of Dale Harrell occurred after he was fatally attacked on January 14, 2009, by his wife Marissa-Suzanne "Reese" DeVault in Maricopa County, Arizona. Her trial made national and global headlines. The case was noted as being very similar to that of the murder of Travis Alexander by Jodi Arias, with whom DeVault was in contact and whose murder trial occurred in the same courthouse one year earlier. Though she faced the possibility of a death penalty for her crime, DeVault was sentenced to life in prison. She is imprisoned at Perryville within the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Ashlee Anne Rose Martinson is an American woman convicted of the 2015 murders of her mother and stepfather, which she committed the day after her 17th birthday. Martinson's case received international attention. Martinson later pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree intentional homicide and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Ryan Poston</span> Murder of an American attorney

On October 12, 2012, Ryan Carter Poston, an American attorney from Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, was shot to death by his on-again off-again girlfriend Shayna Michelle Hubers. After a trial in the Campbell County circuit court, Hubers was convicted of murder on April 23, 2015. She was sentenced to 40 years in the Kentucky Department of Corrections on August 14, 2015, with parole eligibility after 20 years. On August 25, 2016, Hubers' conviction was overturned on appeal when one of the jurors in her murder trial was revealed to be a convicted felon. Hubers was convicted of murder during her second trial on August 28, 2018. On October 18, 2018, she was sentenced to life imprisonment with parole eligibility after 20 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hubert Geralds</span> American serial killer

Hubert Geralds Jr. is an American serial killer who murdered five women between 1994 and 1995. He is serving his prison sentence, life without parole, in Menard Correctional Center, which is operated by the Illinois Department of Corrections. During his spree of murders he was known as the Englewood Strangler. Geralds is in custody under the identification number B39967. He was admitted to the Menard Correctional Center on January 16, 1998.

April Rose Wilkens is an American woman serving a life sentence at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center after her conviction for the murder of Terry Carlton and the subject of the podcast series Panic Button: The April Wilkens Case. She was one of the first women to use battered woman syndrome in an Oklahoma trial, and claimed to have acted in self defense, but it did not work in her favor and she was still found guilty by a jury. Local Tulsa news stations still to this day are hesitant to cover her case due to Carlton's family owning and operating dealerships which buy ad time from them. Her case caused an "outcry from those who say she acted because of battered woman syndrome." As of 2022, she was going into her 25th year of incarceration.

References

  1. ↑ "Stacey Ann Lannert", ABC NEWS website.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 JOAN MARTELLI, "Convicted Murderer Released After 18 Years in Prison", ABC News 2020, 26 March 2009, accessed 12 September 2014
  3. 1 2 3 "Free Stacey Lannert" quotes. Archived February 7, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Joan Martelli (March 26, 2009). "Convicted Murderer Released After 18 Years in Prison". ABC News (ABCNewsGo.com. Retrieved July 16, 2014.
  5. ↑ "No Matter Where You Are, You Can Be at Peace". chargerbulletin.com. October 26, 2011. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Healing Sisters - A Resource for Victims of Sexual Abuse". www.healingsisters.org.
  7. ↑ "Facing Freedom".
  8. ↑ "Stacey Lannert describes her father's abuse: "I didn't know the words to tell someone what was happening"".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.