Missouri attorney general: Strickland is guilty of 3 murders

— The Missouri Attorney General’s Office on Monday said it believes longtime inmate Kevin Strickland is guilty of killing three people in Kansas City and should remain in prison, despite several other prosecutors saying they believe he is innocent. When the attorney general’s attorneys said the quick time frame could be a burden on the office, Horsman noted that Strickland has been “sitting in prison since before I was born.” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced in May that her office believed the evidence used to convict Strickland in 1979 has since been “eviscerated.” Federal prosecutors, Jackson County’s presiding judge and members of the team that convicted Strickland agreed he should be exonerated. Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office argued in Monday’s motion that police said Strickland had offered Cynthia Douglas money the day of the killings to keep “her mouth shut,” which Clarke called a “tampering campaign” by Strickland. But the attorney general’s office said Douglas’ alleged recantation in an email does not name Strickland and the judge can’t know if Douglas sent the email, “let alone absent coercive pressure.” Douglas also did not sign any affidavits while she was alive, Clarke noted.