The sheer stupidity of Kansas City's criminal class is frightening. On Friday, Anthony
Standifer was convicted of shooting a retired Independence Police Department records clerk in the head, killing her in March 2010.
This is one of those murders that truly never had to happen but did, due to incompetent criminals. Standifer, 26, showed up at Beverly Crowl's home, which he mistook for a drug dealer's that he had planned to rob of thousands of dollars of weed and money. But simply, he went to the wrong person's door, and after failing to find what he was looking for, he shot Crowl in the head anyway and took her purse.
A Jackson County jury found Standifer guilty of second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and two counts of armed criminal action.
Standifer's sentencing is scheduled for July 22.
Still facing murder charges for their alleged roles in the killing are 32-year-old Melissa Farris-Visnich and 23-year-old
Nicholas Krejci. CaseNet says 26-year-old Darrin Jefferson pleaded guilty last month and received a 20-year sentence.
Here's the recap on the killing from a Plog report when charges were first filed.
On the morning Crowl's body was
discovered, her twin sister, Barbara Draper, received a voice
message that Crowl recorded sometime after midnight. "Someone's at my
door" and "Somebody's ringing the bell and beating on the door. I don't
know who it is. Some man."
At 7:30 a.m. Draper and Crowl's
daughter, Dana Crowl, went to check and found the house's lights
on and the front door open, with Crowl crumpled on the living room
floor. Blood was pooled around her head and underneath her. Near her
body was a shell casing stamped "Winchester 45 Auto." The inside front
door casing was broken in two pieces on the latch side of the frame, and
the door was cracked next to the knob on the interior. Crowl's purse --
with wallet and cell phone -- was missing. Her black, cordless home
phone was found on the lawn.
WitnessesDarrin E. Jefferson
in the neighborhood gave police descriptions of several young, black
men who were in the neighborhood the previous evening and engaged in suspicious
behavior. One witness said they thought one of the men was trying to
break into a truck.
Police believed that Crowl was the victim of a
"home invasion." Within a week of her death, they issued a description
of a person of interest in the case, along with a composite sketch.
An
autopsy found Crowl was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head.
There
was a break in the case when a confidential witness contacted
authorities and named Standifer and Krejci as two men allegedly planning
to rob a house in Independence on the day that Crowl was killed.
That
witness also told police that the next day, Krejci called to say
Standifer and others had gone into that wrong house, and Standifer "had
to fire a warning shot." Krejci then allegedly said he shot the "old
lady" and "her hair blew back or something." The witness further claimed
that the defendants knew Crowl worked for the police department, and
her deposit slips showed she had $500,000 in the bank. P. Farris-Visnich
Police picked up Krejci,Melissa
Standifer and Farris-Visnich in succession, with each giving the others
up during interviews with detectives.
According to court
documents, the plan was allegedly put in motion by Krejci. Convinced
that there was a drug dealer living in the area with 15 pounds of
marijuana and $70,000, Krejci contacted Standifer and told him that he knew a
place he could "hit a lick." A few days prior to the killing, Krejci
allegedly gave him a handgun. Then the day before Crowl was killed, he
gave Standifer directions to a house on 37th Street on Independence, but
included three addresses -- all on 37th Street -- that the dealer might
be living in.
The day the robbery was planned, Standifer headed
out with his girlfriend, Farris-Visnich, and Jefferson. They drove to the
neighborhood but couldn't find the house. Standifer even called Krejci
asking for better directions. Eventually they found a place they liked.
The numbers didn't match any of the one's Krejci gave them, but they
decided to hit it anyway, because it was close.
Standifer told
Farris-Visnich that her job was simple. All she had to do was go up,
knock, and ask for "Rachel." If someone came to the door, all she had to
do was walk away and the men would do the rest. As she knocked on the
door, they stood hidden around the left side of the house. No one
answered, and she called Standifer on his cell phone as she walked away.
She told him that it sounded like someone was inside. Then she kept
walking away from the house until she heard the gunshot. J. Krejci
StandiferNicholas
and Jefferson allegedly kicked in the door expecting to find weed and
money. Instead they saw an old woman, standing in the living room with
her phone in hand.
They made Crowl get face-down on the floor.
Jefferson searched the house and found nothing, so he took Crowl's
purse. Because Crowl had seen their faces, Standifer allegedly told police
they had to kill her. He fired one shot into her head before they left.
"That was fucked up. That
was the wrong house," Standifer was saying. "There was some old bitch in
there. I had to split her wig."
As they sped away,
Farris-Visnich searched the purse and found Crowl's police
identification.
The next
day, Standifer allegedly returned the gun to Krejci, who sold it to a
man near 55th Street and Prospect.
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