Missouri : Cheryl Feeney
Springfield, Missouri, has just under 180,000 people, according to the 2020 census. There are almost half a million people within the Springfield metropolitan area. Three nicknames this city has is The Queen of the Ozarks, 417, which is the town's area code, and Buckle of the bible belt. the city is known for its outdoor recreation activities and it has almost 100 city parks and 140 miles of outdoor biking trails. The city is the headquarters for Bass Pro Shops, which is the number one tourist attraction in the state of Missouri. I find this insane how is that the best tourist attraction? Springfield is located on top of the Springfield Plateau in southwest Missouri.
Springfield is not the safest place to live, to say the least. We have talked about some pretty dangerous places over the last two years, but this one has the lowest score ever regarding safety. According to the neighborhoodscout.com website Springfield is rated a zero out of 100. This site is saying there are zero cities more dangerous than this one.
The violent crime rate in this city is three times Missouri's average. Property crime is only minimally better at 2.5 times higher than the state average.
The Feeney family is what most would say is your normal middle-class family. Jon Feeney, the father, was a high school science teacher, and Cheryl Feeney, the mother, was a nurse. The couple was married on June 6th, 1981. They would have two children, one boy, and one girl. Tyler, who was six years old, and Jennifer, just 18 months when the unthinkable happened. Jon had grown up as a member of the Church of Christ, which is a strict branch of Christianity.
The couple bought their first home in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where Jon was finishing school, and Cheryl worked at a local medical center. This was when the duo wanted to start a family, and Tyler would be born. They would eventually move to Missouri, and Cheryl ended up becoming pretty high up in the gynecology department of Cox South Medical Center.
Jon was what others would be described as a good teacher and a person that wanted to improve the school. Cheryl was loved by her staff at the hospital.
Now for the timeline of the weekend of February 25th, 1995. This Saturday started like normal for this family. Cheryl went shopping at Dillard's, came home, and had lunch with her family. Jon was doing yard work and getting everything prepped for a science conference at Lake of the Ozarks resort, which was about 90 miles away from home. Jon had a speaking engagement at this event, so he made his way in his Red Mustang convertible late that afternoon.
Jennifer, the baby, was not feeling well. Cheryl had been speaking to a friend and co-worker about illnesses that were going around and the best medication to give Jennifer for a speedy recovery Saturday night. Cheryl also spoke to Jon for about five minutes after he arrived at the resort just letting her know that he made it safely.
On Monday, February 27th, when Cheryl didn't show up for work and Jennifer wasn't taken to the babysitter, people close to the family started to worry. A friend went over to the house to check on Cheryl since she could not get a hold of her all while the babysitter called and left a message at the high school Jon worked at checking on baby Jennifer.
When Cheryl's friend knocked on the door and got no answer, she was about to leave when something overcame her, and right before leaving, she decided to make sure the door was locked. Once she turned the knob, the door opened easily. This was completely out of character for Cheryl, who had three locks on her front door and was very cautious about safety. This friend walks through the house and finds various things that raise some concerns, as well as Cheryl’s vehicle in the garage. She hollered for her friend for a few minutes and didn't get a response, but something didn't feel right, so she used the landline to call the police.
At this same time at the conference, Jon got the message that Jennifer wasn’t with the babysitter, but he didn’t panic because Jennifer was sick. Cheryl could have been up with her all night, and maybe they just overslept, so he called his parents and her parents, trying to find more information. Boy, am I glad there are cell phones and find my friends now because your girl has anxiety and it would not be good if i literally couldn’t contact my family? Jon’s parents tell him they will go to the family's house and check on his wife and children. So we have multiple people going over that Monday morning around 9 am. The friend is sitting outside the house waiting for police to arrive, and when authorities finally arrive and start searching the house, they find something out of a nightmare. Cheryl was dead in her bed, lying face down in her nightgown. The heat on the waterbed was turned all the way up, which was most likely done on purpose to speed up the decomposition process. Cheryl died of blunt-force trauma, she also had defensive wounds are her arms, so we know she put up a fight. She also had two puncture wounds on his cheek as if she was possibly stabbed. Jennifer was in her pajamas in her crib when the police found her. She was strangled with a cord from her bedroom blinds
Tyler, also in his pajamas, was lying in his bed with a Micky mouse pillow over his face. He had been beaten with a blunt instrument, just like Cheryl. Jon would be made aware that Monday morning that his entire family was murdered.
I want to talk about the crime scene because there was either a lot of actual evidence left behind or the scene was staged. authorities believe the latter. First off, quite a bit of paint was spilled in the garage. The murderer stepped in it and walked across the house, leaving footprints. The odd thing is that the footprints in the paint did not fade as the prints got further into the house. It was like the same amount of paint on each print which does not make sense. You would think as they are walking there would be less and less paint on the shoes. The backdoor was kicked in, and the intruder actually left a footprint on the outside of the door. The screws on the strike plate of the backdoor were deliberately loosened and didn't splinter the way a door typically would have if it were kicked in. The screws would have had to be loosened with the door opened. The pry marks on the outside of the door were not in the place one would think if trying to bust open a door. A reddish-brown hair was found on Cherly, and other hairs would be found in the garage. Graffiti was painted on the wall that said “Die Bit” No one knows if it was supposed to say Die Bitch or if that was the whole phrase. There were also some markings that looked like gang graffiti; however, the officer in charge of the gang division of Springfield said that it was not gang related but made to look like gang symbols.. The house was ransacked with drawers and items thrown everywhere, some even missing. Jon would claim 300 missing items to the insurance company. Cheryl’s vehicle, which was found in the garage, had a battery charger hooked up to it even though the battery was not dead. The lightbulb in the garage was loosened, and police found two fingerprints on the bulb. This one right here is the weirdest thing about the crime scene. All of the family photos were turned around to face the wall. Based on this alone it sounds like someone knew the victims personally committed these awful crimes. The faces covered, photos turned around, house ransacked, but some obvious valuables left definitely seem like the house was staged to look like a gang-related home invasion.
Only one suspect has ever been named, and this person had not only been charged with the triple homicide but made it to trial, only for this person to be acquitted. And that person was Jon Fenney. I will go through Jon’s timeline of events that weekend, tell you what evidence the police had on Jon and then tell you what made those 12 jurors not convict him. This is a case where I think the jury got it right, but I don't necessarily think Jon is innocent, either.
Here are Jon’s accounts of what happened that weekend. He left his home on Saturday afternoon and checked into the resort. He then had dinner with a former mistress, and as they were driving back to the hotel, he was pulled over for speeding. He received a ticket, and because he was from out of town, the police would hold his driver's license until he came in to pay for the ticket. Once they returned to the hotel, he told this woman he had a headache, didn't want to hang out, and just wanted to go to bed. Jon called his wife and spoke to her for about five minutes around 915 pm, then drove to the police station to pay for that ticket around 1030 pm. He returned to the resort, and then he stated he never left his hotel room until 11 am the next morning. Jon spoke with a good friend named Steven and various people at the conference all day Sunday and no one reported suspicious behavior. He was his normal talkative funny self. He tried to call Cheryl on Sunday but was unable to get in contact with her. Then as we already know, Monday morning, he was contacted about the murders of his family.
Jon was taken in for the first interview pretty much as soon as he got back into town Monday. He was very cooperative at first. He submitted to a blood test, fingerprinting, and any and all testing and questioning police had for him, but that all changed by the time the funeral occurred a few days later. Police were making it known that Jon was the only suspect in this triple homicide.
Now for what circumstantial evidence authorities had against Jon and why police immediately looked at him so hard. Jon doesn't really have an alibi. He was alone all night. He could have easily driven back home, around an hour and a half each way, and committed these horrible crimes. Police also found a Mcdonald's receipt time stamped 6:59 that Sunday morning. He told officers he didn't leave his hotel room until 11 am. He, of course, backtracked and said he forgot he got up early and went for breakfast. There are reports that Jon wasn’t a morning person, and he typically wouldn't wake up that early, let alone go out for breakfast.
Anyone changing their story always makes detectives raise their eyebrows and dig deeper. The staged crime scene was a huge thing for authorities. The door that was supposed to be kicked in, not splintering but being deliberately unscrewed, raised many red flags against Jon. The graffiti or handwriting on the wall that said Die Bit was identified as Jon’s by a handwriting expert. That is not exactly a smoking gun because those types of analysis are never 100 percent like physical evidence would be.
Jon had taken out large insurance policies on himself, Cheryl, and the kids only a few months before the murders. He would tell police that he has never had an affair, but that would turn out to be completely false when at least four women would come forward saying they were in a sexual relationship with Jon for years. There are reports that it was more than four women, but authorities could only get those four to speak about it on record.
There were various reports of inappropriate behavior between Jon and some of his students, including verbal innuendos, planning overnight trips with students, rewarding them with movie dates, and even having physical relationships with high school students.
Police also found a witness at a Springfield gas station that stated he saw Jon in his red Mustang getting gas near the family's home around 130 Sunday morning. Which, if you remember, was when he stated he was 90 miles away in a hotel room and never left.
In the weeks after the murders, local media would paint Jon as a very bad person. Not only for his many affairs and inappropriate behavior with students, supplying these teenagers with alcohol, but also for his hobby of role-playing in a game called Vampires the Masquerade. Straight from Wikipedia, the game Vampire: The Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game. It is set in a fictionalized "gothic-punk" version of the modern world where players assume the role of vampires, who are referred to as "Kindred." and deal with their night-to-night struggles against their own personal natures, vampire hunters, and each other.
If you wanted to learn about something unusual today, then there you go because this is definitely strange. But apparently, it is or was pretty popular in the 90s. The Wikipedia page is extensive. I had to keep scrolling just to get to the end of the page. The media would say this role-playing game was a satanic game, and Jon would play in order to I guess, live out his dark fantasies. “By becoming a monster, one learns what it is to be a human.” This is a direct quote from the title page of Vampire: the Masquerade game, which is very sinister to think of what came to be. I know I said this was a tabletop game, but people would actually meet up right at nightfall and act out this game in local parks. The group could get up to 100 people, which pretty much blows my mind but to each their own. Yes, this game is a bit on the unusual side, but I do not get the whole training people to be killers aspect of it that the police and media tried to spin.
The autopsy would reveal that the six-year-old Tyler Feeney had the hepatitis B Virus. HBV spreads through blood, saliva, or other bodily fluids. The most common way children become infected is if they are born to a mother with the virus. Older children can become infected through injection drug use or unprotected sex. Cheryl did not have this disease, so how would this little boy have this? This illness is usually transmitted by sexual contact, but studies have shown kids have a higher chance of contracting it from a friend or a sibling through normal play. However, the medical examiner would also report there is a significant possibility that Tyler was sexually assaulted before he was killed. I don't know if that is a cop-out or not because it seems like he doesn't want to say one way or the other.
A health department employee was tasked with cross-referencing everyone Tyler knew, with the names in their database that tested positive for Hep B. The problem with that is that not everyone has been diagnosed and then reported to the state of Missouri. But there was never a match, and this employee would check periodically for updates in the database without any luck.
As I was looking for news articles in 1996, I found one article that was literally the entire newspaper page. I was shocked there was so much coverage of this case back then. I had never heard of this horrible crime that happened to three innocent people. Not that I am an expert on all cases, but you guys know what I mean. The last thing to mention is the state had a witness who stated she saw a red Mustang convertible throwing a metal pipe out the window around 2:30 Sunday morning. Now, if you just hear this side of things, it seems like Jon is definitely guilty, but if we hear the other side, things get messy.
Before I tell you the defenses side, I wanted to mention since all this bad press was happening, Jon filed a restraining order against four members of law enforcement. One is the county prosecutor, the sheriff, a highway patrol, and the case squad spokesman. This order was actually granted. I don't know why this shocked me as well. So much of this case is baffling. I do want to mention that Jon’s defense lawyer is legit.
Now for the defense for Jon for the murder of his wife and two small children. I do believe he had a good lawyer because this guy was able to debunk pretty much every single thing authorities had against Jon. In no particular order, The reddish brown hair found on Cheryl did not come from Jon. Jon did not have Hepatitis B, so he did not give it to his son. The fingerprints on the lightbulb in the garage that had been loosened, not Jon’s. The gas station worker that witnessed Jon getting gas that morning was not actually working that morning according to the time clock.
The defense called multiple people that drove a red Mustang in the Springfield area to the stand, proving it could have been many people throwing the metal out of their car.
The footprints throughout the house were a size 11, while Jon wore a size 12. He also didn't own a pair of that type of shoe. Yes, he had a motive, yes, he had extramarital affairs, and yes, he may have been a crappy father, but there is zero physical evidence that proves he was at home while his family was being murdered. After 53 witnesses and 210 exhibits of evidence during the trial, the jurors were on their way to a verdict. It took five hours before the jury would come back with an acquittal. When the jury was polled later about their thoughts on whether or not Jon killed his family, well, all of them said he was guilty; however, the state didn't prove it. There was reasonable doubt, and according to the law, if there is any doubt, the jury should not convict the accused.
We aren't done yet. After the acquittal, Cheryl’s parents filed a wrongful death suit against Jon. They didn't think he should be getting the life insurance money from his family that they believed he killed. They were suing for $400,000, and you know all I am a stickler for converting long-ago money to today's money. So here It is 762,702.36. Does this make you sick to think about, literally d During our lifetime, inflation has pretty much doubled. One of the insurance companies that would be paying out the funds took the lawsuit to federal courts, leading Cheryl’s parents to dismiss the case. I did read an article that said Jon and his in-laws were working things out and it had to do with more than just money but also their working together to hire a private investigator even though the parents still believe Jon to be the killer.
One thing I forgot to mention before was that Jon moved back into the house where his family was killed right after the murders. I couldn’t find exactly how long but I believe it was after the police finished their search of it. He lived there for years after the murders as well. I personally would want to get as far away as possible. There are reports that Jon Feeney now lives in South America he married a much younger woman and had two children with her. He apparently is still a teacher.
Cheryl’s parents had a granite bench made in memory of their three family members killed. They also started a scholarship fund for the hospital where their daughter worked. The families would hold vigils or memorials on the big anniversaries and local newspapers would write a blurb about what happened in hopes of getting new leads but nothing has panned out. Cheryl, Tyler, and Jennifer’s brutal murder is still unsolved and not much has been reported since Jon was acquitted. So if you know anything about the murder of these three people that were taken way too soon please contact the Greene County Sheriff’s office at (417) 868-4040
Sources:
https://apnews.com/article/5128910c872d3a814098cacb77281e0d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade
https://www.reddit.com/r/coldcases/comments/zn90s2/a_family_massacre_did_a_father_and_science/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/208170643/?terms=feeney&match=1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/208167539/?terms=feeney&match=1
