Rodney Lincoln is innocent. But Missouri law won’t let him clear his name for good
On April 27, 1982, two lives were forever changed.
Melissa DeBoer: On that day, my mother, JoAnne Tate, was brutally assaulted and murdered in St. Louis. I was 7 at the time, and my sister, Renee, was 4. We were assaulted, too. I was terrified and traumatized. I was pressured by police to identify who did this — and I wrongly identified Rodney Lincoln.
Kay Lincoln: My life changed that day, too. My father, Rodney Lincoln, was convicted of that horrible crime and he would ultimately spend 36 years in prison even though he was innocent. Although my dad had an alibi for the time of the crime and no motive to kill JoAnne, he was ultimately convicted based upon two pieces of evidence — hairs at the crime scene that an analyst claimed were a match to my dad’s hair, and an identification of my dad made by Melissa, a traumatized, 7-year-old child.