Suspicion soon began to settle on a fourteen-year-old lad from Saginaw. The youth had run away from home on Thursday, taking his stepfather’s .22 caliber revolver, and he had turned up at the home of a paternal uncle in St. Louis about noon on Friday, ten hours after the crime. The pistol taken from the stepfather was found on Saturday in a restroom of the Greyhound Bus Station in Joplin and identified as the likely murder weapon. After talking to the boy’s mother, the uncle brought him back to Joplin on Monday, March 6. The young suspect was questioned at the police station for about six hours that evening in the presence of his mother and uncle. The boy staunchly denied any knowledge of the crime at first but finally gave a partial confession. He was retained in the custody of Jasper County juvenile authorities. Later, a polygraph test further implicated the lad.
In April, a juvenile judge ruled that the youngster’s case should be transferred to adult court, and the boy, now named as Robert Eugene “Bobby” Sinderson, was charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bond.
At Sinderson’s preliminary hearing in May, the signed statement he’d made during questioning at the Joplin Police station was entered into evidence. He blamed the actual murder on an older boy named Jack Marcus, but he admitted that he supplied the murder weapon. He said he rode to the store with Marcus in the latter’s car but remained in the vehicle when Marcus went inside and committed the murder. Efforts to locate the mysterious “Jack Marcus” proved unsuccessful, and a prosecution witness said he’d seen Sinderson inside the store about 1:15 or 1:20 a.m. on the morning of the crime. At the hearing’s conclusion, the judge declared Sinderson should be held without bond.
At Sinderson’s trial at Carthage in February 1968, the defendant took the stand in his own defense. He repudiated the statement he’d signed shortly after the murder, saying he’d confessed to his role in the crime only because he grew tired of being interrogated for hours and he was afraid the gun found at the Greyhound Station might implicate some other member of his family. The jurors split seven to five, and the judge declared a mistrial.
In April, the county prosecutor dismissed the first-degree murder charge against Sinderson after a defense motion to suppress his confession was sustained. The young man was released, but a new charge of first-degree murder against him in early June in magistrate court, and at a hearing a couple of months later the magistrate judge bound him back over to the Jasper County Circuit Court. He was indicted both for robbery with a firearm and murder.
Sinderson went on trial in Joplin in March 1969 on the robbery charge before a new judge, who admitted the boy’s confession over the objections of the defense. In mid-March, the jury returned a verdict of guilty and sentenced Sinderson to five years in the penitentiary. Commenting on the lenient sentence, the prosecutor said he thought the jury probably believed the boy’s original confession that he was only an accomplice in the crime and not the actual murderer. Based on this conclusion, the murder charge against Sanderson was dropped a few days later.
Sinderson was taken to Jefferson City to serve his prison time, but in October 1971, Governor Warren Hearnes commuted the sentence and he was released in mid-November after serving about two years, eight months.
At Sinderson’s preliminary hearing in May, the signed statement he’d made during questioning at the Joplin Police station was entered into evidence. He blamed the actual murder on an older boy named Jack Marcus, but he admitted that he supplied the murder weapon. He said he rode to the store with Marcus in the latter’s car but remained in the vehicle when Marcus went inside and committed the murder. Efforts to locate the mysterious “Jack Marcus” proved unsuccessful, and a prosecution witness said he’d seen Sinderson inside the store about 1:15 or 1:20 a.m. on the morning of the crime. At the hearing’s conclusion, the judge declared Sinderson should be held without bond.
At Sinderson’s trial at Carthage in February 1968, the defendant took the stand in his own defense. He repudiated the statement he’d signed shortly after the murder, saying he’d confessed to his role in the crime only because he grew tired of being interrogated for hours and he was afraid the gun found at the Greyhound Station might implicate some other member of his family. The jurors split seven to five, and the judge declared a mistrial.
In April, the county prosecutor dismissed the first-degree murder charge against Sinderson after a defense motion to suppress his confession was sustained. The young man was released, but a new charge of first-degree murder against him in early June in magistrate court, and at a hearing a couple of months later the magistrate judge bound him back over to the Jasper County Circuit Court. He was indicted both for robbery with a firearm and murder.
Sinderson went on trial in Joplin in March 1969 on the robbery charge before a new judge, who admitted the boy’s confession over the objections of the defense. In mid-March, the jury returned a verdict of guilty and sentenced Sinderson to five years in the penitentiary. Commenting on the lenient sentence, the prosecutor said he thought the jury probably believed the boy’s original confession that he was only an accomplice in the crime and not the actual murderer. Based on this conclusion, the murder charge against Sanderson was dropped a few days later.
Sinderson was taken to Jefferson City to serve his prison time, but in October 1971, Governor Warren Hearnes commuted the sentence and he was released in mid-November after serving about two years, eight months.
Note: This is a condensed version of a chapter in my latest book, Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings: A Criminal History of Jasper County, Mo.
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