What happened to Mischelle Lawless?
Mischelle Lawless was found dead by a passerby in her car with the headlights on and vehicle still running in November 1992. The case was recently featured in True Crime Story. Police have spent decades trying to piece together what happened to Mischelle on that fateful night. A man called Josh Kezer served 16 years for her murder before he was exonerated and released. Police believe the answers to who killed Mishelle Lawless could be tied back to the men who initially found her car.
Lawless was found in her car with bullet wounds to the face, head and side. It’s believed the first shot was to her face, meaning she witnessed who killed her. One of the men who found her, Mark Abbott, is now considered one of two primary suspects in the case. Abbott, who was an identical twin, claimed to have reported the crime to the sheriff’s office the night of the murder after finding Lawless bleeding out in her car on the exit ramp.
The Conviction and Exoneration of Josh Kezer
Abbott was among the state’s witnesses in the original trial of Josh Kezer, whom he picked out in a lineup. Kezer was 19 at the time of his trial, and was sentenced to 60 years for murder and armed criminal action in relation to Lawless’ death in June 1994.
Kezer was exonerated in an “actual innocence” ruling in 2009, after serving 16 years in prison. A judge ordered his case to be vacated, not just because Kezer’s constitutional rights were violated multiple times, but also because Kezer proved his innocence, given the lack of physical evidence at the scene of the crime.
No physical evidence connected Kezer to the crime. At the original trial in 1994, the state called jailhouse informants who said they’d heard Kezer confess to a murder at a party.
Months before identifying Kezer in a lineup, Abbott gave multiple descriptions of the person he saw in the car that pulled up to the pay phone, but those descriptions of a dark-complected person, possibly Hispanic, did not describe Kezer’s appearance.
What is the latest on the unsolved case?
Scott County Prosecuting Attorney Don Cobb’s predecessor, Amanda Oesch, announced in January 2022 that she was handing the case files over to the state Highway Patrol and Missouri attorney general cold case unit.
In 2023, a special prosecutor was appointed to review evidence in Mischelle Lawless’s unsolved murder. The investigation is ongoing with no arrests made.
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