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Accused St. Louis Cop Killer Heard Voices, His Attorney Says

Published

1 year ago

April 22, 2024

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The opening arguments in the murder trial for accused cop killer Thomas Kinworthy began today, with both prosecution and defense agreeing that Kinworthy killed St. Louis police officer Tamarris Bohannon.

“I’m going to tell you something the defense doesn’t normally say in an opening statement,” said Kinworthy’s public defender, Anne Legomsky. “We admit it. We admit that Tommy did the things that night.”

Legomsky conveyed her condolences to the family of Bohannon, but said that Kinworthy “could not understand what he was doing was wrong” when he shot and killed the 29-year-old St. Louis Metropolitan Police officer on August 29, 2020.

On that day, an armed Kinworthy ran into a house on Hartford Street in Tower Grove South. The home’s two residents fled out the back door. Bohannon responded to the scene, but as he approached the front door, Kinworthy opened fire on him and killed him. After a 12-hour standoff, during which he was holed up in the bathroom of the Hartford house, Kinworthy was taken into custody.

“What happened that night is simply not in dispute. What we’re here for is why it happened,” said Legomsky.

She indicated that when the defense makes their case later this week, they will argue that Kinworthy has schizoaffective disorder and was “actively hearing voices” in the days leading up to and throughout the entirety of the ordeal on Hartford.

Legomsky said that Kinworthy’s mental ailments are in part the result of “ongoing abuse” he suffered at the hands of both parents throughout his childhood. “Every kind of abuse you can imagine,” she said, including physical, sexual and emotional. Kinworthy is from Owensville, Missouri, and had come to St. Louis in August 2020 to meet with his estranged father, whom he hadn’t seen in more than a decade.

Kinworthy rocked back and forth at the defendant’s table as Legomsky spoke. She recounted the events of August 29, 2020, from Kinworthy’s perspective, which she argued was marked by delusions and paranoia.

On the day in question, Kinworthy was at a concert in Tower Grove Park and Facetimed his ex-wife from there. She saw him hiding behind trees and claiming that people were following him.

When he made his way to Hartford Street, Kinworthy encountered a homeless man named Mark Smith and thought Smith “was coming to get him,” Legomsky said. It was only after Kinworthy shot Smith that he went into the house on Hartford, triggering the residents’ 911 calls and Bohannan’s fatal approach to the front door.Legomskyargued that due to psychosis, Kinworthy could not understand what he was doing was wrong.

After shooting Bohannon, Kinworthy again Facetimed his ex-wife, Legomsky said, and even fired at the bathroom walls, as he believed the voices he hallucinated were coming through those walls to get him.

After a 12-hour standoff, the police used a robot to remove the lock from the front door on Hartford. A SWAT team entered and eventually subdued Kinworthy.

One of the experts to be called by the defense is Patricia Zapf, a forensic psychologist who Legomsky said “literally wrote the manual on how to conduct certain forensic evaluations.”

click to enlarge POOL PHOTO / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Prosecutor Tanja Engelhardt described Thomas Kinworthy as a “vicious tornado.”

The trial will likely come down to how convinced the jury is by the mental health experts called by Kinworthy’s defense, as well as how effectively prosecutors are able to pick apart those experts’ arguments.

“Everything was so calm before Thomas Kinworthy, a vicious tornado, arrived on the block,” said prosecutor Tanja Engelhardt in her opening statement.

She recounted the charges Kinworthy faces: first-degree murder as well as nine others. She asked that the jury use their common sense.

The prosecution is expected to call their own mental health expert, who will argue that Kinworthy was in a drug-induced psychosis brought upon by taking Adderall in the months leading up to the incident on Hartford.

One of the first witnesses called today was Bohannon’s widow, Alexis, who said that her late husband had a big heart. She recounted the painful memories of him being taken off life support in the wake of the shooting and broke into tears when shown a photo of him.

Another witness was the owner of the home on Hartford, Steve Haag.

Kinworthy’s other public defender, Brian Horneyer, asked Haag if he saw any police officers do something to provoke Kinworthy opening fire on them.

Haag replied, “How do you provoke getting shot in the head?” Haag then clarified, “They did nothing to provoke the shot.”

The trial is scheduled to run for as long as two weeks, though it may not take that entire time.

The case has already drawn significant controversy in the past year as Judge Elizabeth Hogan, siding with the public defender’s office, has exercised what’s called “prior restraint,” forbidding the Post-Dispatch from publishing material from Kinworthy’s mental health evaluation that was made public by accident for a brief period last year.

“Prior restraint” is a legal term for government censoring speech even before it is made, which the Supreme Court has said it is only allowed to do in extreme cases such as when national security is at risk. Hogan’s use of it here drew significant flak from the legal community as well as free speech groups.

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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