Byron Christopher Case: Wrongfully Convicted in the Murder Trial of Anastasia WitbolsFeugen
In the fall of 1997, Anastasia WitbolsFeugen, eighteen years old, was shot and killed in Lincoln Cemetery, located in an unincorporated area between Kansas City and Independence, Missouri. Her body was found by a Sheriff's Deputy in the early morning hours of October twenty-third, with a large gunshot wound to the face. She had last been seen in the company of Justin Bruton, her on-and, off-again boyfriend, and her friends Byron Case and Kelly Moffett, who were also a couple. The four of them had met at a Dairy Queen nearby, and were on their way to Justin's condominium, about twenty minutes away, in his hunter-green Honda Civic, when Anastasia, upset by the argument she was having with Justin, angrily exited the car at a stop light and began walking quickly away. With little apparent thought, her home being a mere five-minute drive away, Justin simply drove off. The cemetery in which her body was found eight hours later was less than a half-mile from the intersection where she last saw her friends. No time of death was ever determined. No bullets (save an unidentifiable fragment recovered from the victim's hair) or shell casings were ever found at the scene, and her body is presumed to have fallen where she was shot. The Jackson County Sheriff's Department, which headed up the investigation, never named a suspect, not even when Justin's body was found the following afternoon, more than seventy miles away, the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot blast to the head. The case was considered unsolved for almost four years.
When Kelly Moffett and Byron Case broke up, it was a messy affair. Kelly's admitted drug use and infidelity had become more flagrant, and Byron, having lost his father less than two months after his best friends' deaths, was too stricken by grief to handle the loss of his longtime girlfriend. The couple would split, but Kelly would often call him or show up at his home at odd hours, claiming to be lonely, in need of money, or outright homeless, and Byron would do what he could to help, almost invariably finding himself back in the relationship. In the autumn of 2000, he determined that he'd had enough and rented an apartment in Saint Louis, hoping to get away from her, once and for all. The week before moving the last of his belongings, Kelly paid an unannounced visit, saying she was living in a crack house without running water and needed to use his shower. Immediately noticing the lack of furniture and the piles of boxes, she became upset once Byron explained that he was moving largely because of her.
Seven days after Byron's move, Kelly reported to a counselor at the drug rehab center she'd checked into that she had witnessed the murder of her friend Anastasia years earlier, and that it had been her then-boyfriend, Byron Case, who had pulled the trigger. A previous story, given to a different drug counselor during a prior stint in rehab, had been similar, implicating Justin Bruton as the killer. The delivery of that tale got her back in her family's good graces and out of the center; the second version had much the same effect. The difference was that, in the second version of the story, the alleged murderer was alive: authorities had to be notified.
With a supposed eyewitness testimony, the Sheriff's Department moved forward with renewed vigor, encouraging Kelly to elicit a confession from Byron with a telephone recording device. After numerous fruitless attempts, a so-called "tactic admission" was achieved during a largely incomprehensible conversation on June fifth, 2001, when Kelly reached Byron at 1:30 A.M. and deliriously ill (a 103° fever was recorded in a subsequent medical exam). It carried sufficient weight, in light of the vagaries of Kelly's testimony, for a warrant to be issued and an indictment handed down. The ensuing four-day trial was marred by errors, both technical and strategic, and Byron was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. He received two life sentences, one without the possibility for parole. He was twenty-three.
Argument in this case might seem moot – pointless, even – but for a number of facts, some of which were, and some of which weren't presented at Byron's trial. Firstly, Kelly never described the firearm Byron supposedly used to shoot Anastasia, saying only that it was long, like a rifle. She also claimed it came from the wall of Byron's father's home, yet testimony from several people familiar with Byron's father and his home indicated that the man never had an interest in guns or hunting, and certainly would never have displayed a weapon in such a manner. Thirdly, Kelly's version of events (which do not include Anastasia angrily exiting Justin's car on the evening in question) are directly in contrast to a service station mechanic, who described seeing a young woman matching Anastasia's approximate description get out of a dark, late model car, obviously upset, and proceed to walk in the direction of Anastasia's home. Finally, the most obvious facts of the crime itself were conveniently glossed over, with nothing but the most general, long-known information being provided, and, in some cases (i.e.: claiming Byron was as much as eight feet away from Anastasia when he shot, when forensic evidence clearly indicates the gun was fired while pressed against the victim's face) the patently untrue.
The family, friends, and supporters of Byron Case, who have tirelessly held to the facts supporting his innocence, currently maintain the website www.freebyroncase.com, on which can be found information that merits consideration. We encourage you to look into this matter further by reading through and coming to your own conclusion. What has been written here represents only a portion of the facts provided at the site.
