Posted on 11/11/2007 11:10:08 PM PST by McCoMo
Sheriff: Men confess to crime
By Debbie Robinson
news@joplinglobe.com
STELLA, Mo. — Both defendants in the brutal rape and murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford have confessed to the crime, the Newton County sheriff said Sunday.
David Spears, 25, of Stella, and Chris Collings, 32, of Wheaton, are charged with one count each of first-degree murder, forcible rape and statutory rape in the girl’s death. Spears is Rowan’s stepfather.
Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said investigators allege that Rowan was abducted early Nov. 3 from her home in Stella in Newton County, murdered in Barry County, and her body dumped in a sinkhole in McDonald County.
After a nearly weeklong search for the girl, Copeland said, Collings confessed Friday to Wheaton police Chief Clint Clark. Spears was arrested a short time later.
“Both confessed to raping and strangling her,” Copeland said.
Clark did not return a phone call Sunday. The Barry County sheriff’s office in Cassville said Sheriff Mick Epperly would have no updates on the case until Tuesday.
Investigators are continuing to work on determining what happened the night Rowan was abducted from her home, Copeland said.
David Spears has provided conflicting information to investigators since Spears and Rowan’s mother, Colleen Spears, reported the girl missing about 6:50 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, Copeland said.
During the search for Rowan, Copeland said, David Spears rode around with another man.
“He (Spears) was pointing out to this man where would be good places to put a body,” Copeland said.
One of those places was the sinkhole in McDonald County where the girl’s body ultimately was found, the sheriff said.
“It’s about 15 to 20 feet down, and it was getting dark,” Copeland said of the time David Spears reportedly pointed out the site during the search.
Rowan’s body was found the next morning, which was Friday, by McDonald County deputies Jake Boles and Mike Hall in the sinkhole near Powell.
According to reports, Colleen Spears last saw her daughter at about 8:30 p.m. Nov. 2 before she left for work at the Wal-Mart store in Jane.
David Spears, Collings and another man were playing pool at the Spears home in the town of Stella in southern Newton County while Rowan was asleep in her bedroom, Copeland said.
The three men decided to leave at 10:45 p.m. to take Collings home, Copeland said.
“They stopped so a man named Nathan and David could get more beer,” he said.
Copeland said Nathan reportedly dropped David Spears off at the Spears residence.
That’s where the story gets murky, Copeland said.
Authorities said David Spears has acknowledged that he went out a second time around 1:30 a.m. Nov. 3 after calling his mother, Myrna Spears, and asking to borrow her car. Myrna Spears has said she watched television and did not check on the girl. David Spears was gone for 5 1/2 hours.
Copeland said Sunday that David Spears has told investigators that he discovered Rowan missing before he called his mother.
“He said he knew Chris (Collings) would have her (Rowan),” Copeland said.
He said Spears has said that after borrowing his mother’s car, he drove to Collings’ travel trailer, where he alleged that he found Collings raping the girl.
Both men are suspected of raping and strangling the girl with a netting cord, Copeland said.
David Spears initially told investigators that he did not discover Rowan was missing until the next morning, after Colleen Spears arrived home from work.
“We had three different cadaver dogs hit on (Myrna Spears’) car,” Copeland said. “We know the body was in there at some point.”
The two defendants are expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Barry County Circuit Court. Both men were being held Sunday without bond in the Barry County Jail.
Myrna Spears said Sunday that she has not talked to her son since his arrest on Friday.
David Spears and Collings, who grew up in the Wheaton area, have been friends for about 10 years, Myrna Spears said.
She said Collings recently returned from Arkansas, where his estranged wife and two children, both younger than 10, live.
Myrna Spears said she thought she knew Collings, and never suspected that he or her son would be capable of murder and rape.
Copeland said Sunday that Spears and Collings recently had been working for a property owner on construction of a barn in McDonald County.
Neither man is listed as a registered sex offender, Copeland said.
Copeland said Collings, who lived in the travel trailer about a mile east of Wheaton, had been making a living by working odd jobs and selling scrap metal.
Services
Funeral services for Rowan Ford will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Gospel Lighthouse Church in Neosho. Visitation will be from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday at Clark Funeral Home in Neosho, where the family will receive friends from 5 to 7 p.m. A memorial fund has been established. Donations may be made at any Hometown Bank.
For goodness sake.........bring back the electric chair and don’t wet the head sponge! This is horrible and it happens more every day. God help us all.
The McDonald County Newspaper comes out tomorrow. Maybe it will clear some of these questions up... or just muddy the water more.
Pretty bizarre behavior, I gotta admit. He was either trying to throw off suspicion, wanted to be confess but lost the nerve at the last moment, or was just plain dumb.
Will do better about checking my ping list from the bottom up from now on.. I did not intend to make ya poast that whole segment of the article. Sry.
Both of them seem to be competing for credit for strangling her. So wierd. Normally we see two perps like this and both would be blaming the other guy.
Having my ‘druthers’, I’d place the onus on the newspapers rather than the authorities. Plus, the news of Spears driving around with the Coroner came from the Coroner. This is the first I’ve heard of it. It seems more ‘in addition to’ rather than a factual inaccuracy. Most of the article’s other points seem to fit other stories previously written.
Things will continue to come out about this. I doubt we’ve heard a tenth of what the authorities know.
No problem :)
He said he learned from an FBI investigator that the sinkhole was one of several locations that searchers needed to check out. Boles said he and another deputy went to the sinkhole, which he estimated at 25 to 30 feet deep, on Friday morning.
This substantiates the Coroner's comments in the previous article. The Coroner likely passed on his conversation with Spears, and their visits to the sinkholes. The FBI then passed recommendations along to the locals, as to where to look. From that previous article, both Spears and Collings worked for the Coroner at one time. Could this have been a sting on the part of the authorities to get incriminating comments from Spears?
I am in NJ & they try that here too. Here we hear how terrorists had plans to blow up our schools. For awhile I was scared but life has to go on. I guess I'm a protictive mom as this child is the last of my brood but I try to let her not know it too much. She has to make choices & live life with its ups & downs. Right now we are going through a bad upper respitory infection so there been little sleep for me. Sorry if I sounded rude at any point. ~P~
The coroner said something about having to go back & check the recording--that all their (his & Spears) conversations were recorded.
Another thing to remember re discrepancies (besides stupid reporters & lying perps) is that there are 3 different counties/ sets of officials involved plus the FBI. Actually, the coverage of this story seems to have dovetailed better than usual—remarkable, all things considered.
Yep. That made me wonder if they didn't set him up. The guy was being uncooperative, so why not use someone he knows/worked for to get him to open up a little. There's more to this little jaunt than meets the eye.
Another article linked above states no more arrests are expected. Apparently the mom is off the hook? As well as the 3rd guy out partying that night? Earlier, authorities were saying they expected more arrests.
Good point.
"Well, I had too much to drink, maybe a little drugs. Man, it must have really messed me up. I don't even remember what happened that night. I must have been really out of it. See, if I remembered what happened, why, I surely would not have led the coroner to the sinkhole, right? So there's proof that I was so messed up as to be, um, temporarily insane. That's it. And like my mom says, I loved that little girl. I would never have done anything to harm her if I hadn't gone temporarily insane. I just wasn't in my right mind."
There are a number of problems with this defense. One of them is, if he had been THAT messed up, I doubt he would've even been able to drive without going into a ditch.
That's what I think. That explains, in my mind, why she said she didn't check on Rowan & why she furnished the vehicle--that there was some urgency conveyed.
to self: If so, he'd have some 'splainin' to do to his mom when he arrived back home without her.
You'd think. And that's what makes me think she knew a quite a bit more than what has been reported. I'd like to see the results of her polygraph.
Asked if he thought anyone besides Spears and Collings would be arrested in connection with the case, Copeland said, “I don’t anticipate anyone else being involved at this stage.”
That could be. Whatever the motivation, it comes across as a defensive ploy on his part, and possibly a sting on the part of the authorities. It could be one, the other, or both. Yet the only defense I can see his attorney coming up with on this one is temporary insanity. Either that or alcohol or drug induced insanity, and that’s not much of a plea worthy of a jury, I’d bet.
Jesus christ. Did you see what his “mood” was on the myspace page? I almost vomited. Poor child, what did she do to deserve to be born into such a horrible situation. How could the mother trust that pig with her CHILD? I swear if someone put a hand on my 7 year old son, there wouldn’t be a police officer or judge that would keep me from killing them. I read that while the two were being arraigned, the mom was in the courtroom with family members. I’d do the same thing, only it would take about two seconds for me to jump over the damn benches and attack him right then and there.
Yet authorities now say no further arrests are anticipated. Makes me wonder whether she was a model of cooperation to the authorities. Could be that once she found out that Rowan was missing she put two and two together and decided her own interests were in serving the investigation; which could also depend on what excuses her son gave her after returning home (without Rowan!).
Not a lot of point going after her. She has to live with knowing, had she done things differently, Rowan would probably still be alive and her only child would not be facing a first degree murder charge. And that each & every one of the 122 people who live in Stella know that.
Self guilt is never a defense, nor is it a reason to not prosecute someone. Since they're apparently not going after her, it tells me they don't have enough to convict, or she cooperated with the authorities and (big perhaps) won herself some consideration. Or, she really wasn't a part of the situation, other than unwisely allowing her vehicle to be used without learning why beforehand.
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