Scott County jury returns guilty verdict in once-missing-evidence murder case

BENTON, Mo. -- A Scott County jury returned a guilty verdict Tuesday in a murder case involving once-missing evidence.

The jury, at the conclusion of a two-day trial, found Sikeston, Missouri, resident Antoine Harris, also known as Harris-Applewhite, guilty of second-degree murder, armed criminal action, unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon.

Jurors deliberated for four-and-a-half hours before returning the guilty verdicts around 8 p.m.

Judge David Dolan set sentencing for Sept. 3.

Harris, 37, was accused of fatally shooting Samuel Sanders outside a Sikeston liquor store Dec. 19, 2015.

The Sikeston Department of Public Safety (DPS) lost surveillance video evidence in the case, which was later found, not in the police station, but on a computer hard drive at another location, officials have said.

The store surveillance video and a video from a DPS camera mounted on a pole near the West Side Liquor store were played numerous times in Scott County Circuit Court on Tuesday.

But neither video showed the shooting.

Scott County Prosecuting Attorney Amanda Oesch said it was a case of "retaliation, revenge and retribution." Harris, she said, wanted revenge because he believed Sanders had stolen marijuana from him several months earlier.

But defense attorney Thomas Peterson argued the prosecution's chief witness, Latravious Simmons, was a "lying guy who has been in prison his entire life."

The prosecution and defense agreed on one thing: Harris and Sanders had an altercation in front of the liquor store. Video evidence shows the fight.

Oesch said Harris then ran after Sanders, out of the view of the cameras, and fatally shot Sanders in the back.

Peterson contended there is no evidence Harris shot Sanders.

Simmons, who is being held in the Mississippi County jail on a charge in an unrelated case, testified he saw Harris shoot Sanders as Sanders tried to run away. Sanders body was found across the street.

But Simmons, shackled at the wrists and dressed in a yellow jail uniform, acknowledged he told Sikeston police detective Bobby Sullivan last week he did not see the shooting.

A day later, he told the prosecutor he did see the shooting.

"It was like a pop, pop, pop," he told the jury.

Under cross-examination by Peterson, Simmons hinted he did not trust Sullivan.

"Within the community, Bobby does not have a positive reputation," Simmons said.

Another witness, Virgil Tate, testified he was at the liquor store at the time of the shooting. He testified he saw the altercation but did not see the shooting and never saw a gun in Harris' hand.

He told the jury Sullivan had suggested to him Harris did the shooting.

Sullivan wrote in a probable-cause statement the video from the store security camera and the pole camera showed the fight.

He wrote Harris pulled a pistol from his waistband and shot Sanders. At a preliminary hearing, Sullivan testified the defendant could be identified on the video. But at a later hearing on a defense motion to dismiss the charges, Sullivan said there was no video evidence of the shooting.

Former prosecutor Paul Boyd initially handled the case, filing a first-degree murder charge.

Oesch defeated Boyd in an election last year, inheriting the more than three-year-old case.

She recently amended the charge to second-degree murder.

Oesch did not call Sullivan to testify at the trial.

The defense called no witnesses.

While awaiting the jury verdict, Sikeston resident Belinda Johnson White, the aunt of the victim, said she was glad the case had finally ended.

"It has been a long time," she said.

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