{"id":2824,"date":"2021-12-12T12:09:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-12T19:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/?p=2824"},"modified":"2021-12-12T12:09:57","modified_gmt":"2021-12-12T19:09:57","slug":"2021-december-11-news-article-the-pantagraph-quad-city-times-watch-now-state-moves-to-dismiss-mcneils-petition-for-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/?p=2824","title":{"rendered":"2021 December 11 News Article \u2013 The Pantagraph & Quad City Times \u2013 Watch now: State moves to dismiss McNeil’s petition for relief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ON-LINE ARTICLE AND TO VIEW VIDEO OF FRIEND AND FORMER CO-WORKER OF BARTON MCNEIL, JEFF BOYER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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BLOOMINGTON \u2013 Prosecutors have until April 1 to file a motion to dismiss Barton M. McNeil\u2019s petition for post-conviction relief from his 1999 murder conviction<\/strong><\/a> for his 3-year-old daughter\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McNeil, now 62, is serving a 100-year prison sentence for his daughter Christina\u2019s 1998 suffocation death, but he has claimed his innocence since. He\u00a0has accused<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0his ex-girlfriend, Misook Nowlin, of the murder which occurred June 15, 1998, on the same night McNeil broke off the relationship with Nowlin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christina McNeil pictured in November 1996.<\/em>
FOR THE PANTAGRAPH<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nowlin, who now has the last name Wang, was convicted in 2012 of murdering her 70-year-old mother-in-law, Linda Tyda, by strangulation in September 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawyers from the Illinois Innocence Project and the Exoneration Project filed a 65-page petition<\/strong><\/a> for post-conviction relief and a new trial for McNeil’s daughter\u2019s death based on new DNA evidence and advances in scientific evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McLean County Assistant State\u2019s Attorney Mary Koll said in a court hearing Friday that she chose to file a motion to dismiss McNeil\u2019s petition \u2013 which, if granted, would significantly curb McNeil\u2019s renewed effort toward exoneration \u2013 instead of bypassing the step to an evidentiary hearing on the petition,\u00a0which she raised as a possibility<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in McNeil\u2019s last hearing in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Barton McNeil, 62, at the Pinckneyville Correctional Center in 2021. McNeil is serving a 100-year prison sentence on murder charges for the 1998 death of his 3-year-old daughter Christina. Lawyers from the Illinois Innocence Project and the Exoneration Project began representing him about seven years ago and filed a petition for post-conviction relief in February.<\/em>
FOR THE PANTAGRAPH<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

McNeil\u2019s lawyers John Hanlon, Stephanie Kamel, Leanne Beyer, Lauren Myerscough-Mueller and Karl Leonard have until April 21 to respond to the state\u2019s attorney\u2019s motion to dismiss McNeil\u2019s petition. Defense lawyers indicated Friday that they will file a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge William Yoder scheduled a half-day hearing for May 12 for arguments regarding the state\u2019s attorney\u2019s request to dismiss McNeil\u2019s petition for relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McNeil is expected to be present at the May 12 hearing. He was not present at the hearing Friday or in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the judge rules in McNeil\u2019s favor following the May 12 arguments, an evidentiary hearing would be set. That hearing would focus on the details and new evidence laid out in McNeil\u2019s petition<\/strong><\/a>. It also would include expert testimonies and cross-examinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McNeil, who has gained more hope and attention after the innocence projects picked up his case, and when his and Nowlin\u2019s stories were told in an episode of<\/strong><\/a> the Oxygen Network\u2019s \u201cSnapped: Behind Bars,\u201d said in a brief interview with The Pantagraph Friday morning that he\u2019s \u201celated\u201d about the continuous and increasing support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just fantastic,\u201d McNeil said from the Pinckneyville Correctional Center prior to Friday\u2019s status hearing. \u201cAs long as my words are being heard, Christina now has a voice. And her voice has been unheard all these years, so more than anything, I\u2019m glad that the truth is finally becoming known of who really stole my daughter\u2019s life, and hopefully some larger-scale justice will come from this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Boyer is a close friend of McNeil after they worked together at a Bloomington restaurant. McNeil was a manager, while Boyer was working there during his time as a student at Illinois State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boyer, who attended Friday\u2019s hearing, said he lost connection with McNeil after his conviction, but that McNeil reached out to him a few years ago. They now write to each other every few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jeff Boyer, left, is a close friend of Barton McNeil, right, after they worked together at a Bloomington restaurant. Here they are pictured in 1998. McNeil is serving a 100-year prison sentence on murder charges for his 3-year-old daughter Christina’s 1998 death, but he has claimed his innocence since.<\/em>
FOR THE PANTAGRAPH<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believed in him at the time when I visited him at the jail when he was locked away,\u201d Boyer said after Friday\u2019s hearing. \u201cJust my conversations and the time that I spent with Bart, it was watching movies, it was listening to music, it was talking about his daughter at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about the time passing between status hearings, Boyer said, \u201cIt\u2019s the process that we have to go through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been some momentum building up to this point and I think that\u2019s the thing to keep in perspective here, is that getting justice for Christina and getting justice for Bart is going to take some time,\u201d Boyer said. \u201cHopefully this man will be set free because there\u2019s a lot of us here that knew Bart as a kind and loving person, so this man hasn\u2019t even been able to mourn the loss of his daughter the right way, and so, it may just take some time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ON-LINE ARTICLE AND TO VIEW VIDEO OF FRIEND AND FORMER…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[7,100,31,26,132,133,135,109,6,57,22,128,106,104],"class_list":["post-2824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news-articles","tag-barton-mcneil","tag-charles-reynard","tag-christina-mcneil","tag-john-hanlon","tag-lauren-myerscough-mueller","tag-leanne-beyer","tag-mary-koll","tag-mclean-county","tag-misook-nowlin","tag-misook-nowlin-wang","tag-misook-wang","tag-stephanie-kamel","tag-stephanie-wong","tag-teena-griffin"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","covernews-featured":"","covernews-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"chris.ross","author_link":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/?author=3"},"category_info":"Current News Articles<\/a>","tag_info":"Current News Articles","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2829,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}