A court case was held today, Nov. 19, at the Missouri Supreme Court in Jefferson City, Mo. addressing an alleged robbery that took place at the Happyville Apartment complex, in Jefferson City at 10:02 a.m. on the 19th. This case was to determine whether the suspect, Stephen Crook, was guilty of second degree burglary which is a class C felony. A ring was reported to be stolen from apartment 1A, the home of Pat Prey.
In their opening statement, the prosecution said that Crook was sitting in the commons when police found him and was wearing a hat that witnesses declared as the one of the perpetrator and a ring was found in his pocket that resembled the one that Prey had reported missing. They also stated that Lamb was struck down with a baseball bat and that Crook had been convicted of third degree assault in the past. However, the defense argued that the ring found was a $20 ring from a pawn shop and there is no sufficient evidence to prove otherwise and that Lamb was struck by accident.

During the court case, three witnesses were called to the stand to testify; Col. Renata Williams, witnesses Pat Prey and Peyton Friend, as well as the victim Tristan Lamb. Col. Williams who was on the site of the crime during investigation stated that there was a right footprint uncovered by the police team.
“It was a size 11 footprint,” Williams said. “It was a bloody footprint found going away from the door.”
Traces of blood were also found on the bottom of Crook’s right size 11 shoe, leading the prosecution to believe that Crook was present on the crime scene. Also, witness, Peyton Friend, stated that the man that she saw fleeing the apartment complex after the robbery was wearing all black, including a black stocking cap. This matched the clothing that Crook was found in at the time he was taken into custody.

Since the alleged robber’s face was not seen at the site of the crime, the defense proclaimed that he could not be rightly accused of the crime.
“The prosecution tried to cook up trouble, but due to the lack of evidence, or ingredients, only made a recipe for disaster,” Blackshear-Bryant said. “As the prosecution said … every witness that supposedly saw Crook identified him by his clothing. None of them saw his face. Only one, Tristan, saw a glimpse of his face.”

In her closing argument, prosecutor Ashleigh Atasoy stated that Crook was the only possible person who could have perpetrated the crime, given the evidence uncovered. And in the end, prosecution won out. Crook was announced guilty by the jury.
“As we said before, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And in this case there’s a whole lot of smoke coming from one man, Stephen A. Crook. All the points point towards him. It would be ludicrous to say that anyone else did this other than Crook,” Atasoy said. “The black clothing and the hat was seen by every witness, and it was the same clothing that Crook was wearing when he was seen in the common room that morning. The shoe print on the scene of the crime was the same size … of the shoe that Crook was wearing on the morning he stepped in a puddle of Lamb’s blood. The ring that was stolen from apartment 1A was found in Crook’s pocket that morning, and Crook’s DNA was on the door handle of the burglarized apartment. We believe on the prosecution that all the evidence leads to one man, and the conclusion is that Stephen A. Crook was guilty of second degree burglary.”
By Brittany Cornelison and Afsah Khan
Notice: this is a portion of the Missouri Supreme Court Constitution Project and all facts and the event itself are fictional.