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A Missouri man has been in prison for 33 years. A new hearing could determine if he was wrongfully convicted.
A hearing this week will determine if Missouri inmate Christopher Dunn should go free after spending more than three decades in prison for a murder that he has always said he did not commit. Dunn’s conviction and life sentence without parole hinged on the testimonies of two witnesses — a preteen and a young teenager — who have since admitted to lying during the trial.
St. Louis prosecutors are now convinced Dunn is telling the truth, but lawyers for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office disagree and will argue for keeping him behind bars. Dunn, 52, is serving a sentence of life without parole at the state prison in Locking, Missouri, but is expected to attend the hearing before Judge Jason Sengheiser that begins Tuesday.
The hearing follows a motion filed in February by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore. A Missouri law adopted in 2021 allows prosecutors to request hearings in cases where they believe there is evidence of a wrongful conviction.
Dunn was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers in 1990, based largely on the testimony of two boys who said they witnessed the shooting. The state’s eyewitnesses, ages 12 and 14 at the time, later recanted, claiming they were coerced by police and prosecutors.
Kira Dunn via AP, File
“I couldn’t tell you who Ricco Rogers was to save my life,” Dunn told CBS News and “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty in a “CBS Mornings” segment last November. He introduced himself as “an innocent man who has been in prison for a crime which I didn’t commit, who’s afraid I might die in prison.”
Dunn, who at that point had suffered three heart attacks while incarcerated, said he was “trying to figure out what justice is in Missouri.”
Dunn has said that he was home with his mother when Rogers was killed. Despite the fact that there was no evidence to support the testimonies of those two teens who claimed they witnessed Rogers’ murder, Dunn was convicted of the crime during a swift trial and has now been imprisoned for 33 years.
Moriarty attributed Dunn’s ongoing incarceration to a quirk in Missouri law.
“If Dunn had been on death row, he’d be out by now. But he’s serving life in prison without parole, which is kind of the same thing,” Moriarty said. “But in Missouri, lifers aren’t entitled to innocence claims, which leaves his fate in the hands of a prosecutor whose office put him behind bars in the first place.”
Court filings show the two main witnesses in Dunn’s trial recanted their testimonies, in sworn affidavits where each admitting to perjury, in 2005 and 2015, respectively. But Dunn remained in prison.
In May 2023, then-St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner filed a motion to vacate Dunn’s sentence. But Gardner resigned days later, and after his appointment by Gov. Mike Parson, Gore wanted to conduct his own investigation. Gore announced in February that he would seek to overturn the conviction.
Dunn, who is Black, was 18 when Rogers was shot to death on the night of May 18, 1990. No physical evidence linked Dunn to the crime but the two boys told police at the time that they saw Dunn standing in the gangway of the house next door, just minutes before shots rang out.
Rogers and the two boys ran when they heard the shots, but Roger was fatally struck, according to court records.
A judge has heard Dunn’s innocence case before.
At an evidentiary hearing in 2020, Judge William Hickle agreed that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence. But Hickle declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only death row inmates — not those like Dunn sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence.
The 2021 law has resulted in the the release of two men who both spent decades in prison.
In 2021, Kevin Strickland was freed after more than 40 years behind bars for three killings in Kansas City after a judge ruled that he had been wrongfully convicted in 1979.
Last February, a St. Louis judge overturned the conviction of Lamar Johnson, who spent nearly 28 years in prison for a killing he always said he didn’t commit. At a hearing in December 2022, another man testified that it was he — not Johnson — who joined a second man in the killing. A witness testified that police had “bullied” him into implicating Johnson. And Johnson’s girlfriend at the time had testified that they were together that night.
A hearing date is still pending in another case in which a Missouri murder conviction is being challenged for a man who was nearly executed for the crime.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in January to vacate the conviction of Marcellus Williams, who narrowly escaped lethal injection seven years ago for the fatal stabbing of Lisha Gayle in 1998. Bell’s motion said three experts have determined that Williams’ DNA was not on the handle of the butcher knife used in the killing.
CBS News
Avian flu confirmed in a Colorado farmworker, marking fourth human case in U.S. since March
A case of H5 influenza, also known as bird flu or avian influenza, has been confirmed in a man who was working at a dairy farm in northeastern Colorado. That’s according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which said it is the fourth confirmed human case in the United States since an outbreak among cows that appears to have started in March.
VLIET/Getty Images
The man was working in Northern Colorado and had direct contact with cattle that were infected with avian flu. To this point, the only U.S. cases have been among farmworkers.
The CDPHE says the person who tested positive for the avian flu only had one symptom — pink eye, otherwise known as conjunctivitis. He was tested after reporting his symptoms and received an antiviral treatment with oseltamivir afterwards. Those are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended steps when there’s a confirmed human case. The man, whose identity is not being released, has recovered.
This is the first confirmed a case of avian flu in Colorado since 2022. CDPHE state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy said the risk to the public is low.
“Avian flu viruses are currently spreading among animals, but they are not adapted to spread from person to person. Right now, the most important thing to know is that people who have regular exposure to infected animals are at increased risk of infection and should take precautions when they have contact with sick animals,” Herlihy said in a prepared statement.
Jill Hunsaker Ryan, the executive director of the CDPHE said “Coloradans should feel confident that the state is doing everything possible to mitigate the virus.” The guidance for farmworkers includes the recommendation that people shouldn’t touch animals who are sick or who have died. For people who must handle such animals, the following is recommended:
– Wear personal protective equipment that includes an N95 respirator as well as eye protection and gloves.
– Wash hands with soap and water afterward. An alcohol-based hand rub could also be used if soap and water is not available.
“We can make these recommendations, but I think all of us realize that this may be a bit challenging for workers to comply with that,” the CDC’s Tim Uyeki said at a briefing with rural doctors last month.
It is unclear whether the man was wearing personal protective equipment.
“Our partnership with the Colorado Department of Agriculture has been crucial in disseminating information to dairy farmers across the state,” Hunsaker Ryan said.
The three other confirmed human cases of avian flu since the March outbreak in cattle were found in Texas and Michigan.
Anyone who has been working with dairy cows and begins to feel sick with possible avian flu symptoms should call the CDPHE at 303-692-2700 during the day or 303-370-9395 after hours.
More information about avian flu can be found on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s website.
News of the case comes as federal officials are now debating whether and when to deploy 4.8 million doses of bird flu vaccine that are being filled into vials this summer. Finland announced last month it would offer shots to workers who might be exposed to the virus.
Vaccinating farm workers?
U.S. officials say manufacturing of the vaccines is expected to be done by August.
Vaccinemaker CSL Seqirus says it is still in talks with the Food and Drug Administration to clear use of their shots in humans. After that, it would be up to the CDC to decide whether to roll out the shots for farm workers.
“No final decisions are made, but we are in the process of robust discussion,” the CDC’s Principal Deputy Director Dr. Nirav Shah told reporters on Tuesday.
Shah said the vaccine debate hinges in part on whether more distribution of flu treatments might be a better alternative.
“If our goal is to reduce the number of infections that may occur, we have to wonder whether vaccination is the best route for that, or whether there may be other routes that are faster or even more effective such as, as I mentioned, more widespread use of antivirals,” said Shah.
Officials are also discussing other measures to help workers infected with the virus, Shah added, including the possibility of offering financial help with sick leave and further outreach.
Farm workers may also not be willing to get the shots, even if they were to become eligible for vaccination.
“If right now, H5 is not perceived as a pressing threat among farm workers, and I’m not speculating as to whether it is or not, but if that is the case, then uptake may not be robust,” said Shah.
Nearly lost forever, a family heirloom painting turned out to be a Texas masterpiece and sold for six figures at Dallas-based auction house last week.
According to Heritage Auctions, the painting of Texas bluebonnets was loaded onto a trailer with donations bound for Goodwill, all belongings of a woman who was moving to the West Coast for retirement.
She had received it as a gift from an extended family member in Texas to commemorate her birth in 1922, according to the auction house. At the last minute, the woman decided “it was too pretty to surrender,” and she kept it.
After the woman died, her daughter kept the painting on display in her own home near Tacoma, Washington.
For years, no one in the family realized the artwork was an original by “the father of Texas painting,” Julian Onderdonk. The family recently made the discovery and decided to put it up for auction “to someone who will genuinely appreciate it,” the original owner’s grandson told Heritage Auctions.
On June 29, the painting, named “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio” sold for $112,500. In the same auction, two other Onderdonk paintings sold for $106,250 and $93,750, respectively.
Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Who was Julian Onderdonk?
Onderdonk was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1882 and showed artistic talent at a young age, according to the Texas Historical Society. He began teaching art as a teenager and later moved to New York City to study and teach.
In 1906, Onderdonk took a seasonal job organizing art exhibitions at the Dallas State Fair, now known as the State Fair of Texas. In 1909, he moved his family back to Texas, eventually taking an interest in painting bluebonnets and other Texas landscapes.
Onderdonk painted “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio,” in 1921. He died the next year, at the peak of his success.
His work is on display at several museums, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
Former President George W. Bush had several Onderdonk works in the White House during his administration, according to the historical society.
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