A Northwest Missouri man awaiting his third trial for the same 1990 murder went free on bail today.
A crowd had gathered outside the jail where Mark Woodworth was being held, anticipating posting of a bail bond. Circuit Judge Owens Lee Hull, brought in from Platte County to hear the case, granted a ten percent bond of $500,000.
Family, friends from long ago were on hand to greet the 38-year-old inmate.
There are opposing views in the town of Chillicothe on whether Woodworth did or didn’t kill neighbor Cathy Robertson when he was 16. She was shot in bed with a .22-caliber handgun, her husband seriously wounded.
The first two trials ending in conviction were handled by Missouri Attorney General lawyers, one of whose courtroom tactics were noted after other inmates were later exonerated.
The Missouri Supreme Court has questioned handling of Woodworth’s case and ordered him re-tried or set free.
The Attorney General will pursue it again.
An Associate Press reporter discovered evidence that might have been good for Woodworth’s defense, but was kept secret.
Woodworth was freed today on bond pending trial number three.