Evidence Was Mishandled by Circuit Attorney’s Office, Lawyer Says

A defense attorney is claiming the Circuit Attorney’s Office withheld exculpatory evidence in a murder case

Written by RYAN KRULL

The defense attorney representing a St. Louis man who was accused of killing a Parkway West senior in April 2020 says that the prosecutor handling the case for the Circuit Attorney’s Office withheld crucial, potentially exculpatory evidence the office had in its possession for more than two years.

Carieal J. Doss, 18, was found dead on April 14, 2020, on a sidewalk in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood, having suffered a gunshot wound to the head.

Levi Henning, who is now 21, was charged with Doss’ murder almost a year later. According to court documents, Henning had arranged to meet with Doss to buy a gun from her. He was later found in possession of the firearm she was selling, a Springfield semiautomatic handgun.

Charges against Henning were filed March 3, 2021, but the case was dropped by the Circuit Attorney’s Office earlier this month.

Defense attorney David Mueller says in between Doss’ death and the case’s dismissal, the Circuit Attorney’s Office waited more than two years to disclose key evidence in the case.

After charges were filed, the prosecution of the case was initially handled by Assistant Circuit

Attorney Srikant Chigurupati.

At a hearing on March 9, according to a court filing by Mueller, the Circuit Attorney’s Office finally disclosed a key ballistics report as well as Doss’ Facebook messages that Mueller says the Circuit Attorney’s Office had in its possession for years.

Mueller says in a court filing that about a week after Doss was killed, the police swabbed for DNA two pieces of cloth “found within arm’s length” of Doss.

Police then waited until August 2021 to test those DNA swabs, which it found to match someone else other than Henning.

A motion filed in court says that in April 2022 the Circuit Attorney’s Office disclosed that the DNA matched a man named Brandon Langston. Langston is facing charges for a murder that occurred just four days after Doss’ death.

However, there were also ballistics tests that showed that the weapon as well as the ammunition were the same in both Doss’ murder and the murder for which Langston is charged — but those facts were not disclosed by the Circuit Attorney’s Office until this month, Mueller says.

“It’s persuasive evidence of an alternative suspect,” Mueller says. “I don’t know that it proves beyond reasonable doubt that he’s the shooter in this case. But I also think that there’s far more evidence against Mr. Langston than there is against Mr. Henning.”

Mueller also says that when the Circuit Attorney’s Office filed charges against Henning, its case was based in part on Henning’s Facebook messages with Doss.

The state did disclose approximately 2,500 pages of Henning’s Facebook activity in April 2022.

According to Mueller, Chigurupati said in a court filing that he had disclosed all the Facebook messages related to this case.

“That was not true,” Mueller says. “He provided essentially half of the Facebook records.”

The Circuit Attorney’s Office also had Doss’ Facebook messages, which they did not disclose until this month.

Mueller says that Doss’ messages totaled more than 2,000 pages, including exchanges with approximately eight people she communicated with on the day she was killed. One of those messages was from an individual, who was not Henning, who invited Doss over to an apartment not long before she died. Mueller says an investigator working for his office located this individual in less than 24 hours and learned that she had never been interviewed by authorities.

Furthermore, the Facebook data not made available to Mueller until this month shows that Doss was still active on the site after the state says that Henning killed her.

“It’s not justice to hold on to discovery that you know to be excul- patory,” Mueller says.

Mueller says he also takes exception with an application for a warrant signed by both a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department detective and an attorney with the Circuit Attorney’s Office.

Mueller calls it, “one of the most egregious warrant apps I’ve ever seen.”

The warrant application says that a ballistics report from the SLMPD firearms lab confirms that a gun found in Henning’s possession was used in Doss’ murder. However, the report itself says in large, all capital red letters at the top of the page: “Notification only. This has not been worked.”

Elsewhere on the ballistics report, it says that the evidence only “has the potential to be linked to” the case against Henning.

“This is the most egregious thing I’ve seen done by a circuit attorney’s office and a police officer in 10 years,” Mueller says.

Mueller says that this month’s disclosure happened in part because last summer responsibility for the case transferred from Chigurupati to a different assistant circuit attorney, Natalia Ogurkiewicz.

“Ms. Ogurkiewicz was the one who identified and disclosed the DNA evidence that had never been disclosed,” Mueller says. “In my opinion, she did so timely considering when she took over the file.”

Mueller became Henning’s lawyer in February of this year, and he had the full discovery, including the ballistics, DNA evidence and Facebook messages, the following month.

Mueller says that he feels for the Doss’ family. They have consistently shown up to hearings in the case against Henning, hoping to have justice for the young woman who died three years ago next month.

“There’s a victim in this case,” Mueller says. “They have not received justice. There hasn’t been a proper investigation.”

He adds, “The way that the investigation was conducted and the way it was litigated…It’s not justice for my client. But it’s also not justice for these victims and their families. It’s not justice for the city.”

Henning is currently detained in the City Justice Center on unrelated robbery charges. n