A Trial Date

In the first week of 1992, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office would boast that it had just recorded a record year of convictions and prison sentences. In 1991, 1,240 individuals had been sent to prison, which was up from 1,132 the year before. Circuit Attorney George Peach was also gratified to announce that of the 2,943 people who had pled guilty, ninety-eight percent pled guilty as charged.

By the end of the summer, though, there was little expectation that Ellen’s case would be tried in 1992. Karen Kraft had only started to proceed with the psychiatric evaluations, which she predicted might take weeks, if not months. She was seeking many outcomes from these examinations, including determinations about Ellen’s mental capacity, specifically whether it was or had been diminished in any way.

Shirley Loepker, the prosecutor who had filed for the death penalty, was busy with one case after another, plus she was planning to take time off in November to get married. Following that, it would be difficult to summon witnesses during the holidays, so as far as she was concerned, while it was only still late summer, the trial would take place in the early part of 1993.

It wasn’t until October 8, 1992, when both sides consented to yet another continuance, that a trial date was actually set. Judge Charles D. Kitchin said Ellen’s trial would begin on March 15, 1993. With pretrial motions and jury selection, it was expected to get underway on March 22nd. On December 16th, when Karen Kraft asked for additional time to evaluate her client and prepare for trial, Judge Kitchin moved the case back again, to May 10, 1993.

Ellen had already spent fifteen months in the city’s medium security prison, and she was about to spend her second Christmas behind bars. The new year would bring a resolution to her case. There would be no more continuances and no more delays, she was told, but it wouldn’t be the case.

On January 7th, Ms. Loepker, who had now assumed a new married name, Shirley Rogers, decided to bump Ellen’s case and try another child-murder case first. She was still adamant about the death penalty for Ellen, and she was actively interviewing additional potential witnesses, and planning for a phase of depositions from a long list of others. She hadn’t forgotten the aggravating circumstances that she cited in seeking capital punishment for Ellen:

The offense was committed for the purpose of receiving money from the victim.

The murder in the first degree was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhumane in that it involved torture or depravity.

In the first week of March, Shirley Rogers and Karen Kraft began to square off in preparation for the trial that was now set to take place in May, some two months away. Karen Kraft filed a flurry of motions, including one to conduct individual voir dire on prospective jurors, and another seeking to quash the indictment due to the unconstitutionality of Missouri’s death penalty. There was another seeking access to the arrest record, and yet another asking for day care for dependent children and family members of single parents who were selected as jurors, or in the alternative, seeking not to sequester the jury.

The state began the process of taking depositions, starting with Joe and Detective Bender. Joe was the key to the whole case. In Ms. Rogers’s mind, Joe, along with Dr. Graham, had solved it through a simple process of elimination. Detective Bender was also a vital witness, because he had accompanied Joe to make the arrest, had been along at times on the trail with the sergeant in the early stages of the investigation, and finally had interrogated Ellen and had elicited her confession with a firm, but soft nudge.

Ms. Rogers’s investigator, Thomas Murphy, had been helping all along to manage the growing list of potential witnesses, staying up-do-date with their whereabouts, and also keeping them abreast of the case’s evolution toward trial. But now it was twenty months after the arrest. What further complicated matters was the fact that it had been more than three and a half years since Steven Boehm had died.

In all, Ms. Rogers listed thirty-two witnesses for her case. She would call on the doctors at Cardinal Glennon and Children’s Hospital, on the EMS workers, on Todd Andrews, who had administered CPR to Steven. The state would use testimony from Ellen’s friends, coworkers, and neighbors, and would summon people like Lisa Schneider, who did Ellen’s nails, and Tony Kafoury, who sold her the blue Lumina right out of the showroom.

Drs. Brumberg, Scalzo, and Grant were still practicing at the hospitals. Many of Ellen’s coworkers and friends and neighbors were still right there in town. Mr. Kafoury was still selling cars at Weber Chevrolet, and Mrs. Schneider was working her magic on cuticles. However, some of the key witnesses had moved thousands of miles from St. Louis. Mr. Andrews was now living in California. He had graduated from St. Louis University Medical School the year after Steven died, and was now working at a medical center in Bakers-field, California. William and Elizabeth Pratt had relocated to the East Coast.

The expert medical examiners were far-flung, too. Dr. Cole would have to travel from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Luke, the consultant to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia, would have to travel, as would even Dr. Dix from Columbia, Missouri. The trial was stacking up to be an expensive one. Aside from flight arrangements, there would be hotel accommodations.

Faced with this prospect, on April 5th, Shirley Rogers was willing to make an offer to Ellen Boehm. In exchange for guilty pleas to first-degree and second-degree murder in the deaths of Steven and David, she would not be prosecuted in the first-degree assault against Stacy, and there would be no trial. This would mean that Ellen could escape the death penalty, but she would have to accept a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of probation or parole for Steven’s death. She would also receive another, concurrent life term in the death of David. A decision on the plea bargain was demanded by the end of the week.

At least to friends and family, Ellen was still admitting her guilt. Just as she had conceded guilt to Susan Emily on the phone only two weeks after her arrest, she would come clean with Susan’s daughter Cheryl during a visit at the workhouse. Cheryl made it clear she was there as a family representative, that she had come for Ellen’s mother, who was too frail to visit. “I’m doing this for your mother,” she said, “for Catherine.”

That was all it took. Ellen, who never had a kind word for her mother and had even told Cheryl’s mother that she would be glad when she was dead, broke down. She admitted to Cheryl that she had killed the boys. She was sorry now, she said.

Ms. Rogers knew that Ellen’s videotaped confession would be a powerful arbiter during the trial. She, like many prosecutors in St. Louis Circuit Court, also recognized the effectiveness of such confessions on juries. This winning prosecutor didn’t have to think very hard about how the jury would react to Ellen’s vivid description of David’s death:

“… and I put the couch pillow over him. And my hands were on both sides. And he was really strong. He did struggle a little. And, then I put that right there for about forty-five seconds at the most. Then I put the pillow back on the, on the couch and at this point he was lying on his back. And, I called my girlfriend Sandy and we talked, you know, about what each of us did for our Thanksgiving.”