Mark Woodworth is an American man from Livingston County, Missouri, who was convicted twice for a 1990 home invasion murder of his family's farming partners, the Robertsons.
Woodworth spent twenty years in prison for the crime he did not do, but was finally freed and exonerated, after the bizarrely handled ballistic evidence used against him was ruled to be so egregiously tainted, that it was barred from being used in a court of law.
[4] As well as dozens of news articles following an alternate suspect, letters withheld from defense,[5] and the strange twist of evidence removed in a surgery that was given to a private investigator who took it to England.
[6] On the night of November 13, 1990, just some minutes before midnight, an assailant entered the Robertson home, located six miles outside of Chillicothe, Missouri.
[3] After twenty months went by, Lyndel Robertson hired former Platte County deputy Terry Deister to work on the case.
[7] Diester acquired the aid of Chief Deputy Gary Calvert of the Livingston County Sheriff's Office.
Robertson took Deister's report to Livingston County prosecutor Doug Roberts, demanding he charge Woodworth with the crime.
[3] After two months, Lyndel sent a letter to Livingston County Chief Justice Judge Kenneth Lewis asking him to push aside the elected DA and convene a grand jury.
[10] On October 29, 1993, Woodworth was charged with the second-degree murder of Catherine Robertson, and first-degree assault of Lyndel, burglary and armed criminal action.
Officer Miller testified that he found a box of bullets on the workbench in Robertson's machine shed and dusted them for prints.
[3][14] Deputy Calvert testified that Woodworth gave conflicting statements about how many times he had been in the shed and how often he went target shooting with his father's pistol.
Prosecutor Hulshof presented a theory that Mark felt cheated because the Robertsons disputed the amount he was owed after expenses.
Associated Press reporter Alan Scher Zagier discovered three letters involving prosecutor Keneth Hulshof, Judge Lewis and Lyndel Robertson.
[3] Ramsey citing the letters as undisclosed violations of Due Process, filed a writ of habeas corpus in July 2010 on Mark's behalf to the Missouri Supreme Court, who then appointed a special master, Judge Oxenhandler, to hold evidentiary hearings.
Ramsey put on many witnesses, and in May 2012, the special master found violations of Brady when the prosecution did not disclose the letters and police reports to his defense lawyers.
Oxenhandler's report would now go to the Missouri Supreme Court for a decision, though the Attorney General's office was prepared to put up a fight.
[3] When consulting with innocence project attorney Sean O’Brian, Ramsey was told the state would not only fight him in the court but in the media.
At which point he consulted with David Sale, who had experience in publicity, and suggested they work towards a documentary and an online presence as a way to bring attention to the case.
[16] Todd Frankel of the St. Louis Post wrote: “Early on, he pushed a theory that the bullet tied by ballistic tests to a handgun owned by the Woodworth family also had been planted — or at least swapped out.
Then, last year, a judge barred this same ballistic evidence from a third trial, finding “egregious, flagrant, cavalier disregard for evidentiary procedures and processes.
A video was shot the morning after the murder of the entire crime scene, including the machine shed and the bench, but showed no boxes on the workbench.
[6] On January 5, 2013, after attorney Robert Ramsey gave oral arguments in front of The Missouri Supreme Court, Mark Woodworth's conviction was overturned for a second time.
Where Sale was asked to write out an affidavit that attested that Livingston County prosecutor Adam Warren had not been part of his web group.
[16] Robert Ramsey filed a motion to Platte County Circuit Judge Owens Lee Hull Jr that the bullet evidence in the case be thrown out.
On April 15 Circuit Judge Hull found what he called an “egregious, flagrant, cavalier disregard for evidentiary procedures and processes” in the case against Mark Woodworth.
[1] On January 29, 2014, Platte County Circuit Judge Owens Lee Hull Jr. barred the Missouri attorney general's office from trying the case at all.