ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri prosecutor on Wednesday filed a motion to vacate the conviction of a man imprisoned for more than three decades for the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy, the second time in two weeks that a St. Louis-area prosecutor has challenged a longstanding murder conviction.
Christopher Dunn, now 52, is serving life without parole for killing Ricco Rogers in 1990. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said in a news release that the case against Dunn relied on testimony from a 12-year-old boy and another aged 14, both of whom later recanted.
“The eyewitness recantations alone are enough to show clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence in this case,” Gore said. “Justice requires that Christopher Dunn’s murder conviction be vacated.”
A message was left Wednesday with the office of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.
On Jan. 26, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate the murder conviction of Marcellus Williams, 55, who narrowly escaped execution seven years ago for fatally stabbing Lisha Gayle in 1998. Bell’s motion said three experts have determined that Williams was “excluded as the source of the male DNA on the handle of the murder weapon.”