ST. LOUIS (AP) - The lawyer for a St. Louis man convicted in a 2012 cellphone robbery in the city's Central West End says a police failure to promptly trace calls from the stolen phone led to a similar robbery eight days later in which a former Saint Louis University volleyball player from suburban Chicago was killed.
Megan Boken, 23, was shot to death in an August 2012 daylight robbery while she was talking on her phone. Keith Esters, 19, was sentenced in November to life in prison plus 20 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in Boken's death.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday that the lawyer for Cornell McKay said in a new court filing that 17 calls from the phone stolen in the first robbery were made to Ester's girlfriend. Police later learned Esters had used the phone and also found one call to a man who once lived with Esters and his girlfriend.
Defense attorney Robert Ramsey called the investigative delay a "lethal mistake."
"Once the victim's mobile phone was recovered the police were in possession of probable cause and significant evidence against Keith Esters. Had they arrested Esters, Megan Boken would still be alive," Ramsey wrote in a post-trial motion. McKay was convicted in December and awaits sentencing next month.
The police department declined to comment Wednesday, citing the pending criminal case. Susan Ryan, a spokeswoman for Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, provided a statement saying her office will respond in court to the allegations while noting many of them already have been litigated.
"A jury concluded that the evidence presented at trial proved that Cornell McKay was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. We stand by the prosecution and the jury's decision," the statement reads.
Jurors at McKay's trial heard testimony about the phone's whereabouts and calls made but were not told Esters' last name or provided details about his other crimes. Esters and co-defendant Johnathan Perkins also are charged with stealing money and a cellphone during an armed robbery of a woman in Brentwood on Aug. 12, 2012 -two days after the first Central West End robbery and six days before Boken's killing.
The new court motion accuses police of covering up the possible connections between the two Central West End robberies and includes mention of a probation officer's report suggesting that police may have destroyed or withheld evidence.
Prosecutors did not explain at trial how the stolen phone ended up with Esters if McKay was the robber. In court documents, they said Esters might have stolen or bought the phone from McKay.
Boken was a 2011 SLU graduate from Wheaton, Ill. who had returned to St. Louis for a job interview and a volleyball team reunion.
Her family is now promoting an effort to encourage cellphone carriers to support mandatory anti-theft software known as "kill switches" on smartphones.