Answering the "Unanswered" questions

PLEASE NOTE: We are working on a FAQ to replace this page, to address new issues (consider them to be some "unasked questions") and leave alone issues that were never really relevant. The new page should be up by early 2008.

Byron Case’s supporters have posted a number of what they consider "unanswered" questions about the murder of Anastasia WitbolsFeugen and Case's trial. Those questions frequently seem reasonable as long as no answer has been given. The truth is that many of these questions are bogus red herrings designed to misdirect, and should be ignored entirely, but we chose to answer them anyway, to refuse them the bogus victory claim. And the truth is that even after we HAVE directly answered the questions, we still see them remaining as if still unanswered, or not answered to the True Believers' satisfaction. We intend here to place those answers where all can see them, and to allow all to make informed judgments on their merits. Please read on.

Before going to the questions, we would like to quote from the trial itself, in the instructions to the jury regarding "Proof beyond a reasonable doubt". We bring this up because throughout the trial and since, Case and his supporters have attempted to confuse that issue, trying to equate any doubt, no matter how slight, with reasonable doubt. The quote is from Judge Charles Atwell, before allowing the jury to retire to render a verdict:

"Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you firmly convinced of the Defendant’s guilt. The law does not require proof that overcomes every possible doubt."

We mention this because the term "Reasonable Doubt" is one of the most poorly understood concepts in American jurisprudence. "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" is the standard required of the prosecution in most criminal cases within an adversarial system, and is what was required in this. It means that Case's guilt must be proven to the extent that there is no "reasonable doubt" in the mind of a reasonable person. There can still be a doubt, but only to the extent that it would be "unreasonable" to assume him guity. Reasonable Doubt is defined in the U.S. as "any doubt which would make a reasonable person hesitate in the most important of his or her affairs." It was obvious from the tactics of Case's defense, from comments made by friends and relatives after his trial, and from his appeals that Case had not hoped for acquittal in the trial, but merely to introduce just enough doubt in one or two jurors as to cause a hung jury.

The "Unanswered Questions" section of Case's web site has changed a number of times, as they attempt to deal with our answers, but they have not updated them recently, and some of their "rebuttal" responses to our answers have become almost non sequitur, as they now have little or nothing to do with the issues we raise. Where they once made a show of their "balance", they now supress information that casts their arguments in a bad light; in some cases, they don't even list our answer any more, so the reader isn't even aware of what it is they are attempting to rebut.

They also keep harping on the "documentation" they offer, and seem to believe that they have all the documents that were generated during the investigation. This is untrue. They have approximately half of the more than 2,000 pages of documents created between October 23, 1997 and May 2, 2002. They also have spectacularly failed to provide any documentation to prove their main points about Kelly Moffett's alleged heavy drug use before the murder, using only Byron Case's uncorroborated claims as their sole source.

According to the website, authored by Anna Hunsicker:

"Kelly used drugs before Byron ever met her, during their relationship, after Anastasia was shot, 
and may still to this day. She did not start using drugs as a coping mechanism for supposedly 
witnessing Stasia's murder. She was a wild, wild girl."

"It was also usual behavior for Kelly to lie and make up stories."

Ms. Hunsicker provided no source for any of her defamatory speculations about a woman she had met only a handful of times, and about whom she knew little more than the misinformation Case had provided. No evidence or testimony was offered during State of Missouri v. Byron Case that Kelly was using drugs heavily before she met Case (including her cross-examination under oath), and none of Case's appeals so far have made any claim to that effect. The speculation that Ms. Moffett "may still [use drugs] to this day" is no more than speculative libel. We believe that Cas'e supporters are simply hoping you'll see only their righteous claims of "We have the documentation" and not notice that they really have no documentation for the most critical points of their argumnet. And considering that these accusations come from a group (larger than the two or three contributors to the web site) that has considerable drug use and more than one arrest and suicide attempt among it, it also seems an excellent case of Kettle and Pot name-calling.

Case's Question 20 is an excellent example of his inability (or unwillingness) to address the major issues of a question, and the lengths he and his friends will go to misdirect the discussion. You will no longer find it on his own web site, because it was removed without comment once it had been shown to be an absolutely invalid point. When we pointed out that the witness cited saw nothing that could be of help to them, the emphasis was changed from what the witness saw to a more peripheral argument. Eventually, the question was dropped entirely, without a word on Case's website that the point had been conceded. A visitor to Case's website would never know that he and his party had even asked such an embarrassingly bad question, nor that he has hung such a large portion of his claim of innocence on it.

We have a few questions for Byron Case that have never been answered in any but a most evasive manner:

1. Why did Byron Case and Justin Bruton tell two different stories about where Anastasia got out of Justin's car, alleging two different locations where Anastasia would have gotten out?
   
2. Case and Justin Bruton asked Anastasia to meet them at Mt. Washington Cemetery, at a heavily wooded, lightly travelled spot.
   
   • Why did they want Anastasia to meet them at such an unusual, out of the way spot as that?
     
   • Why did they return to that same spot in Mt. Washington Cemetery after having picked up Anastasia at the DQ?
     
3. Why did Case's friends harass Peige Turner, a close friend of Anastasia's?
   
4. Why did Byron Case, knowing he was a suspect in an unsolved murder, simply refuse to speak to police about the murder after July, 1999?
   
5. In November and December, 1997, Case freely admitted to Anastasia's family that he had driven his car "to a friend's house" (later identified as Aaron Vermeulen) the day after the murder. Why has he spent so much effort since then claiming his car was in the shop that day?
   
6. Why did Byron Case describe Anastasia as one of his "closest friends" when communicating with her family, when the truth was that he strongly disliked her?
   
7. In a newspaper article printed by Penn Valley Community College, Case (or his mother) claimed that "friends" of his and Kelley Moffett's said they'd heard her threaten to "make his life a living hell" after they broke up. The exact quote was "Friends of Case and Moffett say she was very bitter over the break-up. They heard her say she was going to make Case's life a 'living hell.'"
   
   • Exactly who were those "friends", and why did they not come forward at trial?
     
   • Why did did these "friends" choose to be anonymous in the news story?
     
   • Why since that time has Case's story changed to claim that Moffett made the threat directly to him, and why did it change only in response to the challenge to produce witnesses?
     
   • Why did he not inform someone at that time about Kelly's alleged threat, knowing that he was a suspect in an unsolved murder case, and that such a threat could be so harmful?
     
   • If Kelley did indeed make such a threat, why did Case not raise that issue and make a statement to that effect when he took the stand on his own behalf at his trial? In other words, why did he wait so long to come up with this particular argument?
     
8. Why did Case accuse his attorney of incompetence for not asking for a mistrial when it was he himself who made the decision?
   
9. Why does Case continue to use Amoco mechanic Don Rand's testimony as part of his appeals process when that testimony had already been proven to be irrelevant?
   
10. Finally, why weren't most of these following "unanswered questions" asked at trial? Case had 10 months to prepare for trial, yet failed to bring up most of these "important" issues, and has not brought most of them up in his subsequent appeals. He has no one to blame but himself in that matter. Aren't these questions imortant enough to raise in the legal proceedings, and not just on a web site?
    

The questions that follow came straight from the original web page of Case’s supporters (please click on the question number for our response):

Question
1.	Why was Anastasia's time of death never determined?
2. 3.	Why were ballistic tests never conducted on the bullet fragment found at the crime scene? Why can it not be determined if the murder weapon was a handgun, or a shotgun?
4.	Why did Anastasia's boyfriend Justin Bruton commit suicide within 48 hours of Anastasia's murder?
5.	Why would Kelly Moffett have waited so long to come forward, if she really had witnessed Anastasia's murder? Did it have anything to do with her drug use, mental illness, the "reward" money being offered, or her confinement to a drug rehabilitation clinic?
6.	Why did Kelly's story change only after she began saying that she saw the murder occur. (at first, implicating Justin and sticking to that until her next period in rehab)?
7-8.	Kelly alleges that Justin and Byron had her place a phone call to Anastasia in order to lure her out of her house. Several people's testimony makes this impossible, due to the time frame involved! Francesca WitbolsFeugen's (Anastasia's younger sister) statement on 10-28-1997 contradicts this by saying that Anastasia and Justin had plans to meet when they got cancelled when Justin called a few minutes after she had already gotten a ride to Mount Washington and refused to pick her up. Hardly the type of behavior inherent in a plot to kill someone. After waiting little more than an hour for Justin to arrive, Anastasia walked to the Dairy Queen across the street to call Justin and demanded that he pick her up. Justin was already with Byron and Kelly at the time and were at Justin's apartment. Why would she lie about her placing a phone call to lure Anastasia out of the house?
9.	Kelly claims the gun used to shoot Anastasia belonged to Byron's father and was "up on the wall" of his house, yet numerous witnesses testified that Byron's father never owned a gun, let alone had one on display in his home! Who is telling the truth about this?
10.	Why were details of time, distance and other verifiable information left out of Kelly's story?
11.	If Kelly was lying, why did she take a voice stress (lie detector) test in August of 1998, maintaining that she did not see Anastasia killed?
12.	Witnesses testified that when they saw Byron, Justin and Kelly (supposedly after the murder took place), everyone acted normal...even cheerful. Kelly's version of events had her in shock and Justin shaking and crying. Did both of them recover their composure so completely in less than one hour?
13.	What motive could Byron possibly have had in committing the murder of Anastasia WitbolsFeugen?
14.	Why did Kelly, the NOW "ex-girlfriend" of Byron's, tell him that she would "make his life a living hell?" What thought was behind this statement?
15.	Why has only ONE, highly questionable witness, been able to bring a conviction in this case?
16.	Why were there two prosecutors against one incompetent public defender?
17.	Why were the police so anxious to find "somebody" and close the case as soon as possible?
18.	Who really killed Anastasia WitbolsFeugen?

There were a few other "unanswered" questions that have since been removed, but we feel it’s worth going into them, if only to show what other arguments Case apologists were using before having been called on them. We also note that some of the questions weren't completely retired, but merely folded into a couple of other questions, or revived in other ways.

Question
19.	Why was Anastasia cremated so soon after her death, without a thorough criminal investigation and/or any DNA samples taken from her body?
20.	A totally disinterested, third party witness, reported having seen a girl matching Anastasia's description get out of a car and begin walking up the road angrily, yet Kelly Moffett says this never happened? Is such activity common at that intersection?
21.	Why did Anastasia's father take out a second life insurance policy on his daughter's life, only one week before her murder?
22.	Throughout the course of the Sheriff's Department investigation, Anastasia's father accused many people of having a hand in his daughter's murder. He even gave blatantly false information to investigators on several occasions. Why would the parent of a murdered child willfully mislead authorities?
23.	Who received the $15,000.00 reward money offered in this case? Was it Kelly?

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Who is Byron Case?

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