George Allen

On Jan. 13, 2013, nearly 30 years after George Allen was sentenced to 95 years in prison for a rape and murder in St. Louis, Missouri, he was exonerated by DNA testing.

The Crime

On Jan. 31, 1982, a snowstorm hit St. Louis, Missouri. By Feb. 4, the snow in the LaSalle Park neighborhood was 20 inches deep. Between 10 and 10:15 a.m., Pamela Ann Richardson telephoned a colleague, 31-year-old Mary Bell, a St. Louis Circuit Court stenographer, to make arrangements to come to Ms. Bell’s home to pick up work materials.

 However, when Ms. Richardson arrived between 10:30 and 10:45 a.m., Ms. Bell did not answer the door, so Ms. Richardson left.

That evening, Ms. Bell’s live-in boyfriend, Russell Watters, found her nude body on the bedroom floor. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 19 times.

A bloody knife was found wrapped in a towel and stuffed in a cooler inside a closet near the front door. Police found blood and other biological evidence on Ms. Bell’s robe, on the floor, and on her body. 

The Investigation

Kirk Eaton was an initial suspect because he had recently been released from prison after serving time for a rape conviction. Mr. Eaton’s brother lived in the same apartment complex as Ms. Bell and Mr. Eaton had been seen near there. Shortly after the murder, Mr. Eaton disappeared.

On Mar. 14, police officers saw 26-year-old George Allen Jr., a diagnosed schizophrenic, walking several blocks from Ms. Bell’s residence. Because they thought he resembled Mr. Eaton, they took Mr. Allen to a police station where Pam LaRose, an officer in the police sex offenses division, interviewed him. During questioning, Mr. Allen first said he had previously forced women to have sex with him but then denied doing so. Mr. Allen also said he had committed rapes in the public housing projects near where Ms. Bell lived but then denied committing any rapes.

Officer LaRose ended the interview, believing Mr. Allen was unreliable. “He couldn’t give me names, exact locations, or anything else. I just terminated the interview with him,” she said.

Herbert Riley, a homicide detective, then began questioning Mr. Allen and ultimately obtained a tape-recorded statement during which Mr. Allen confessed to sexually assaulting and killing Ms. Bell. Mr. Allen also said that he was mentally ill, that he was intoxicated at the time of the interrogation, and that he was innocent.

At the time of the crime, Mr. Allen lived about 10 miles from Ms. Bell’s apartment. There was no explanation for how he could have made his way to Ms. Bell’s apartment at the same time St. Louis was experiencing a paralyzing snowstorm.

Mr. Allen was charged with capital murder, sodomy, rape, and first-degree burglary. 

At a pre-trial hearing on a defense motion to suppress the statement, Mr. Allen denied involvement in the crime and said he was home that day. Family members testified he was there and that he helped a sister dig out her car out of the snow. Mr. Allen said he falsely confessed because he was convinced by Detective Riley that they had evidence against him and that he had no choice but to confess.

The motion to suppress the statement was denied.

The Trial

On April 20, 1983, Mr. Allen went to trial in Cole County Circuit Court. 

Detective Riley testified that Mr. Allen provided police with details that they did not know prior to the interrogation – that while he was in Ms. Bell’s apartment, someone banged on the front door and called the name “Sherry” or something similar.

Ms. Richardson testified that when she came to Ms. Bell’s apartment, she knocked on the door and heard “muffled bumping sounds.” She said she called out Ms. Bell by her first name two or three times and then left.

Sandra Salih, a neighbor who lived next to Ms. Bell, testified that sometime after 10 a.m., she heard screams from Ms. Bell’s apartment. After the screams stopped, she heard knocks on her door. When she opened the door, she saw a woman, presumably Ms. Richardson, leaving. 

Ms. Salih admitted she did not tell police this until April 1983, more than a year after the crime occurred because she was scared and her family told her not to get involved.

Joseph Crow, a criminologist for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, testified that Mr. Allen could not be eliminated as a suspect based on serology tests. Mr. Crow said that anal and vaginal swabs, Ms. Bell’s brown robe and jeans, and a chair revealed the presence of A and H antigens. Mr. Crow testified that he determined Mr. Allen to be a non-secretor and therefore could not be excluded as the source of the semen, although neither could roughly 89 to 90% of the population. 

A fingerprint examiner testified that 27 fingerprints had been recovered. The examiner said Ms. Bell’s live-in boyfriend, who discovered her body, was the source of 19 of the prints, and one belonged to a police officer at the crime scene. The examiner said the other seven were of no value because they lacked sufficient features for comparison.

The defense attacked the confession as false because Detective Riley used highly leading questions that incorporated details about the crime.  In the few instances when the detective asked Mr. Allen an open-ended question, Mr. Allen made statements that were not consistent with the facts. For example, Mr. Allen said the crime had occurred at night when it had occurred in the morning. He said he hit Ms. Bell with his hand, but there was no evidence of blunt force injury. He said the victim was 20 or 25 years old; she was 31. He said if he stabbed Ms. Bell, it was her chest. Ms. Bell was stabbed in the back and neck. 

On Apr. 22, a mistrial was declared after the jury deadlocked, voting 10 to 2 to acquit him. 

On July 25, 1983, following a retrial, Mr. Allen was convicted of capital murder, rape, sodomy, and first-degree burglary. Because one of the jurors was excused prior to the sentencing hearing, the prosecution waived the death penalty and Mr. Allen was sentenced to 95 years in prison.

His convictions were upheld on appeal. 

The Exoneration

In 1996, the Innocence Project began re-investigating Mr. Allen’s case but closed it a year later because the prosecution claimed the biological evidence had been destroyed. In 2002, Larry Johnson was exonerated of a 1984 rape in St. Louis based on biological evidence that the prosecution had previously claimed was destroyed. A family advocate for Mr. Allen then contacted the Innocence Project. The case was reopened and the evidence was found. 

In 2003, DNA tests performed on Ms. Bell’s robe and a pair of jeans found near her body excluded Mr. Allen and identified Ms. Bell’s boyfriend as the source. 

In 2007, the St. Louis law firm of Bryan Cave joined the Innocence Project to re-investigate the case.  Further DNA testing on other items of evidence in 2010 again excluded Mr. Allen.

In September 2012, the defense filed a motion for a new trial citing the DNA evidence as well as reports that had never been disclosed by the police that eliminated Mr. Allen as the attacker.

The documents showed that prior to arresting Mr. Allen, police were collecting samples from suspects to determine their blood type because they believed the attacker was someone whose semen contained B antigens. 

By then, DNA testing also had uncovered an unidentified male DNA profile on the towel containing the murder weapon.

The petition said that the lawyers also discovered police reports showing that, contrary to police testimony, the seven fingerprints actually were compared and none were Mr. Allen’s. 

On Nov. 2, 2012, Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green vacated Mr. Allen’s conviction. Judge Green ruled that the police — particularly Detective Riley — had withheld important evidence from the defense. The Missouri Attorney General’s office appealed the ruling.

Mr. Allen was released on bond on Nov. 14, 2012 — his first moment of freedom in more than 30 years. On Dec. 26, 2012, the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld Judge Green’s decision. On Jan. 18, 2013, the case was dismissed.

In 2014, Mr. Allen filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking compensation for his wrongful conviction. In October 2016, Mr. Allen died at his home outside St. Louis. In 2018, Mr. Allen’s family settled the lawsuit for $14 million.