(Note: This project began with the intent of profiling many of my direct-line ancestors, but as it has progressed I have strayed beyond ancestors on two occasions to memorialize information about other relatives whom I thought would be interesting to future family researchers. One that I wrote about, Samuel Lafayette ROARK, was my grand-uncle and a noted educator in Missouri and Oklahoma at the beginning of the twentieth century. Another, David Lee NUTT, a first-cousin three times removed, gained his notoriety by murdering two men who had each had affairs with women who were married to Mr. NUTT. In both cases David Lee NUTT was found “not guilty” by juries basically because they looked upon wives as essentially being the property of husbands.
Today I am again straying away from the direct-line of my ancestry and focusing on another cousin, one who was tried for murder and convicted. That cousin, Steven Wayne LANKFORD, was a contemporary of mine and a person whom I knew fairly well. The profile which follows intentionally does not contain the names of individuals who are still living.)
Steven Wayne LANKFORD was born on June 15th, 1951, at Sale Memorial Hospital in Neosho, Missouri, to Cecil Thomas and Betty Joan (MACY) LANKFORD. He died on January 8th, 2000, at the Capitol Medical Center in Jefferson City, Missouri, as the result of a prison assault.
Steven Wayne LANKFORD was my first cousin. His mother and my father were siblings.
Steve LANKFORD and I were born a little over three years apart and grew up in households which were located about twenty-five miles away from each other in adjoining counties. Although his mother and my father were siblings, they were not necessarily close, nor were their families. I have one memory of riding somewhere in a car with Betty and Cecil and their kids when I was young, but I cannot remember where we were headed that day. I also remember visiting in the LANKFORD home once or twice and Cecil and Betty’s family coming to our home on a very few occasions. Usually when Steve and I encountered each other as children it was at our grandfather’s home in the Westview area of Newton County.
Steve grew up in the small town of Seneca, Missouri. His parents had a small home in town next to the Church of Christ which the family attended. My Aunt Betty apparently took religion very seriously, and I remember my dad once remarking in a less-than-kindly manner that Betty had her kids in church every time the door was open.
Steve attended school in Seneca, but I can find no record of him graduating from high school there. He was married in the early 1970’s but by the early 1990s was single again and living at home with his parents. His life in Seneca as an adult seems to have centered on drinking and small-time crime. A friend who owned a business in Seneca told me that Steve had been the primary suspect when her business had been broken into one night in the late 1980’s.
I had very infrequent contact with Steve as an adult. My one clear memory of him as an adult occurred one night in 1991 when I was living in Neosho and working for the local school district. It was late in the evening and I was home alone with my three kids when Steve showed up on the doorstep. He was quiet and calm, though obviously drunk. Steve was looking for a ride out to the Westview area where our uncle lived - and I was only too eager to drive him as the one sure way to get him out of our house. When we got to the Westview area he asked to be put out along the road, and I quickly complied. It was the last time that I ever saw my cousin.
Two years later, in February of 1993, Steve LANKFORD was again in the Westview area late one night. According to news reports he entered the backdoor of a home belong to seventy-three-year-old Wesley James THOMAS and discovered Mr. THOMAS sitting at his kitchen table eating. The old man was facing away from the door and did not hear Steve enter the house. The home invader had a two-foot long oak two-by-four in his possession and used the board to strike Mr. THOMAS on the back of the head. The old man fell to the floor bleeding, and Steve took the man’s wallet and left.
A few days later I stopped by my Dad’s house and he said, very somberly, that he needed to tell me something. He said that the sheriff of Newton County had come to my Aunt Betty’s house in Seneca that day to question Steve about the old man at Westview who had been killed. He said the sheriff had talked to Steve for a long time, and that he had finally confessed to killing the man.
Steve was initially charged with first-degree murder, to which he pled innocent. Later the charge was reduced to second-degree murder and he pled guilty to that charge, relieving the state from the expense of a full trial. In January of 1994 Steve was sentenced to two life sentences, to be served concurrently, and would have been eligible for parole in fifteen years if he had survived that long. Steve was injured in a prison assault during the first week of 2000, an attack that resulted in his death.
The murder of Wesley James THOMAS and the case of the murderer, Steven Wayne LANKFORD, were covered extensively in the local press. The Neosho Daily News (where the trial occurred), The Joplin Globe, and The Springfield News-Leader each ran several stories about the crime, the victim, and the criminal. What follows is a recap of the crime and trial that ran in The Joplin Globe on January 8th, 1994:
2 Life terms imposed in beating death / Seneca man to be eligible for parole in 15 years
By Debbie Robinson, Globe Neosho Bureau
Neosho, MO: A 43-year-old Seneca man described by his minister as kind and compassionate, was sentenced to two life terms in prison for the murder of an elderly man 11 months ago.
Steven Wayne Lankford was sentenced by Judge Tim Perigo to two life sentences for killing James Wesley Thomas (sic), 83 (sic), whose body was found Feb. 8, 1993, on the kitchen floor of his rural Neosho home. The sentences are to run concurrently.
Lankford pleaded guilty Nov. 12, to a reduced charge of second-degree murder and armed criminal action. He originally was charged with first-degree murder.
Lankford will be eligible for parole in 15 years.
Second-degree murder carries penalties of 10 to 30 years in prison, or life in prison. Armed criminal action carries a minimum sentence of three years with no early release and a maximum of life in prison.
Sarah Luce, assistant prosecuting attorney, recommended that Lankford receive the maximum penalties.
Sitting among several friends and family members, Lankford’s mother wept as the sentence was read. No member of Thomas’ family or friends were in the courtroom.
Perigo allowed Lankford to visit with friends and family members before being taken back to the jail where he has been held in lieu of $200,000 bond since his arrest on Feb. 18, 1993.
Courtroom confession:
Lankford admitted at his plea hearing that he struck Thomas over the head with a two-by-four oak board as Thomas was sitting at his kitchen table.
He said he became frightened when he saw a pool of blood on the floor, so he took Thomas’ wallet containing about $100 and fled. He said he called the house the next day, but did not get an answer.
Lankford told authorities he wanted the money to buy beer.
After his arrest Lankford took officers to a house about a quarter-mile from Thomas’ house where a two-foot long oak board was recovered from the top of a well house.
Lankford also led officers to a salvage yard near Copeland’s Corner where Thomas’ wallet containing his driver’s license was recovered from a van.
Sentencing hearing:
Bob Hampton, minister of Seneca Church of Christ, testified for the defense Friday about his relationship with Lankford.
Hampton said Lankford, who attended church as a child, was baptised about four months before the killing.
Hampton said Lankford had been attempting to deal with his alcohol dependency.
He described Lankford as a “kind, compassionate, humble” person when he was not under the influence of alcohol. He said Lankford is a man who knows “right from wrong” and was trying to turn his life around.
Ken Sadowski, a local representative of Alcoholics Anonymous, testified that he met Lankford at the jail about eight months ago.
He described Lankford as “very remorseful.”
“He said if he could change places with the man he had harmed, he would do it in a minute,” Sadowski said.
Under questioning from Ms. Luce, Sadowski said he had no contact with Lankford before his arrest.
“Alcohol not a defense:”
Larry Maples, the public defender, asked Perigo to consider the minimum punishment for Lankford, saying he has no prior assault convictions and has expressed remorse for the killing.
Perigo said he had thought about the case for several weeks. “Alcohol was not a defense, and alcohol was no excuse,” he said.
He compared the crime to a convenience store robbery in which the clerk is shot.
“I consider you entering the man’s home more serious than entering a store,” he said.
Thomas, an acquaintance of Lankford’s, was described by law enforcement officers as a reclusive man. He had lived alone at his rural home for several years, moving there after his sister, who lived in the house, died.
After the trial, Steve was moved to the Missouri State Prison in Jefferson City to serve out his sentence. I know that my Aunt Betty made several trips to Jefferson City to see him at the prison. My Uncle Cecil died in 1998, and after that Betty found another relative who would take her on the long drive to the prison. During the first week of the new millennium Betty received a call from officials at the prison who told her that Steve had been attacked by other inmates and that he was on life-support and going to die. They kept him alive until she could get to Jefferson City to tell her son “goodbye,” and then Steven Wayne LANKFORD was removed from life support and succumbed to his injuries.
Today Steven Wayne LANKFORD is at rest at New Salem Cemetery in rural Newton County, Missouri, next to his parents. (My aunt, Betty MACY LANKFORD, died at her home in Seneca on December 21st, 2013.) Steve's maternal grandparents, favorite uncle, and several other relatives are also buried at that same cemetery - as well as Wesley James THOMAS (October 8, 1919 - February 7, 1993), the man that Steve murdered.
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