ST.
LOUIS (AP) -- Charges are no longer pending against the wife of a man
accused of shooting a state trooper in March, after the Carter County
prosecutor dismissed a tampering charge on Monday.
Coree
Shockley, 23, of Van Buren, had been charged with evidence-tampering in
April. She had been under suspicion of removing ammunition from the
home she and her husband shared, after Lance Shockley allegedly shot
and killed Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham Jr.
Graham, 37, was found dead March 20 in uniform outside his home near Van Buren, shortly after he finished his shift for the day.
Coree
Shockley then had faced an assault charge, accused of going to Carter
County Prosecutor Michael Ligons' home in Ellsinore after his office
had charged her with tampering with evidence.
Ligons reported
seeing a car registered to Coree and Lance Shockley leaving his
driveway. The sheriff's office concluded Coree Shockley had gone to the
home to ''threaten or alarm'' Ligons.
That assault charge was
dismissed earlier this month by special prosecutor Steven Lynxwiler,
the prosecuting attorney for Ripley County.
In a letter to
Associate Circuit Judge Donald Henry on June 3, Lynxwiler wrote, ''Mr.
Ligons asked me to dismiss this matter so he would not have to
disqualify himself from other criminal matters which are presently
pending in the Circuit Court of Carter County.''
On Monday, Ligons dropped the evidence tampering charge against Coree Shockley.
Ligons
said the decisions to drop the charges were largely strategic. He said
Coree Shockley's case involved evidence that will be needed in the
murder case, and he wanted to make sure it was protected for the more
serious charges. He said it will be determined later if the evidence
tampering charge should be refiled.
Dwayne Hackworth, Coree
Shockley's attorney, said it was right that the charges against her
were dismissed. He said Shockley was not tampering with evidence when
she moved ammunition out of the home, but was rather dropping off
rounds that a relative had bought from Lance Shockley.
And he argued that she simply turned around in Ligons' driveway and was not at his residence to try to intimidate him.
Ligons said, however, that her appearance at his home had caused him ''a little bit of concern.''
Hackworth
had filed two motions on Coree Shockley's behalf, but they had not yet
been heard Monday when Ligons asked for the dismissal.
One sought
a reduction in Coree Shockley's bond and argued that certain conditions
of the bond be lifted. Hackworth said Coree Shockley had been
prohibited from entering her own home and from talking to her husband
and some other family members. She has now returned home, he said.
Hackworth also had filed a motion to dismiss, claiming the state had not provided evidence to the defense in a timely manner.
Coree's husband, Lance Shockley, 28, is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in Graham's death.
Investigators
believe that Lance Shockley killed Graham after the investigator
focused on him as a suspect in a hit-and-run last November in Carter
County that killed Jeffrey Bayless.
Coree's sister, Cynthia Chilton, and her mother, Sherry Chilton Keeney, also have been charged with lesser offenses in the case.
