Following a two-hour evidentiary hearing in Christian County Circuit Court Tuesday morning, Judge Andrew Self granted motions to dismiss grand jury indictments of murder and first-degree robbery for Lashanda Person Bell and Annastaja Hathaway — two women of interest in the 2006 cold-case murder of 84-year-old Roscoe Mayes.
In the end, Self what was before him and the entire court was “the grand jury process itself” — one that he ruled was, either intentionally or unintentionally, prejudicial to the defendants.
He made it clear that there is a “strong presumption of regularity” that’s attached to grand jury proceedings, and it’s not the job of the circuit court to scrutinize the secrecy of the grand jury. It’s secretive in nature, he said, for “good reasons.”
Self said the “critical issue” for Bell was in regard to grand jury testimony, in which former Christian County Sheriff’s Office Detective Malcolm Moore, in narrative form, said there had been a “DNA match” from a walking cane of Mayes.
In all actuality, it wasn’t a “match,” per se, but something a Connecticut forensics lab long ago had noted in a mitochondrial DNA report that Bell “couldn’t be ruled out.”
Self said Detective Moore is held in “high regard” by both him and the Christian County community, but that this was a mistake.
He said the situation with Hathaway was “a bit different.” But, there were two things of concern.
No. 1: the unsolicited and inexplicable statement by former Commonwealth’s Attorney Rick Boling to the grand jury, in which Boling said “he knew that [Mayes] carried a little change purse in his pocket, that was not found at the [murder] scene.”
Self said he wasn’t sure Boling needed to testify Tuesday, but said that statement was false and misleading.
And No. 2: because this case was re-presented to the grand jury in a unified, joined fashion, alongside the already dismissed Regina Vause, Hathaway was also covered in prejudicial evidence.
Following that emotional outburst from the gallery, Self made it known that Vause, Bell and Hathaway were released “without prejudice,” which means that any point, any one of the trio could be re-indicted on new charges if the evidence sufficed.
Self even stated the evidence is there for more investigation, particularly as Mayes’ death remains unsolved.
Self heard considerable cross examination of Constable Mike Haddock, Det. Moore and Det. Mark Nichols from Bolen and defense attorneys Doug Moore and Brandi Jones.
Person was arrested in Union County in May 2022, and Hathaway was taken into custody in Houston, Texas in June 2022 — following new connections to the cold case.
Vause was arrested, but saw her murder charge dropped in July 2022.
