{"id":645,"date":"2012-03-14T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T18:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/?p=645"},"modified":"2021-06-17T06:41:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T12:41:06","slug":"detectives-make-prison-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/?p=645","title":{"rendered":"2012 March 14 News Article \u2013 Detectives make prison visit in 1998 murder case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Ryan Denham | March 14, 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Barton McNeil, left, was convicted of killing his 3-year-old daughter in 1998. He has long said Misook Wang, right, his ex-girlfriend, was responsible for the girl’s death. (Photos courtesy of Illinois Department of Corrections, McLean County Sheriff’s Department)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

BLOOMINGTON \u2013 Two Bloomington detectives recently visited convicted murderer Barton McNeil in state prison, but there\u2019s no new evidence that anyone else killed his daughter in 1998, police said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McNeil was convicted of smothering his 3-year-old daughter, Christina. He\u2019s now serving a life sentence in prison but has long maintained that his then-estranged girlfriend, Misook Nowlin, broke into his Bloomington apartment and killed Christina while he slept. Investigators never believed that theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Nowlin, now known as Misook Wang, was arrested last fall and charged with staging an elaborate plot to lure her 70-year-old mother-in-law, Wenlan \u201cLinda\u201d Tyda, into traveling to the Twin Cities, where she was strangled. Tyda\u2019s body was later dumped in a forest preserve near her home in the Joliet area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That connection was enough to prompt a second look<\/a> at the 1998 case by police and the McLean County state\u2019s attorney\u2019s office. Detectives recently traveled to interview McNeil at Menard Correctional Center, police spokesman Dave White said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr. McNeil did not have any new information that would require additional follow up,\u201d White said. \u201cMr. McNeil did offer one new theory, that it was Misook or her ex-husband (who) brought their daughter to (kill Christina). She would have been about 8 years old at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe case was reviewed and we found the information supports the verdict in Barton McNeil\u2019s case,\u201d White added. \u201cDetectives have spoken with Mr. McNeil and supporters<\/a>. Following those discussions some follow-up interviews were conducted, but there are no new leads to pursue at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McLean County First Assistant State\u2019s Attorney Jane Foster said she hasn\u2019t been briefed yet on the prison visit. (Foster, a Republican candidate for McLean County state\u2019s attorney, is on a four-week leave ahead of Tuesday\u2019s primary election.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo new information has been given to me to review at this point, so I haven\u2019t done any type of additional review from what I did a few months ago,\u201d Foster said Tuesday. She\u2019s said her initial review found nothing that ties Misook Wang to the 1998 murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McNeil said he\u2019s looking for legal assistance to file a new appeal. WMBD 31 reported in February<\/a> that the Downstate Innocence Project, based at the University of Illinois at Springfield, was reviewing McNeil\u2019s case and would potentially take it on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McNeil\u2019s cousin Chris Ross spoke with WJBC\u2019s Beth Whisman about McNeil\u2019s supporters and their efforts to appeal his conviction. They have started the website FreeBart.org<\/a> to try and gain public support for his case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Ryan Denham | March 14, 2012 BLOOMINGTON \u2013 Two Bloomington detectives recently visited convicted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-older-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","covernews-featured":"","covernews-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"jeanne.ross","author_link":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/?author=4"},"category_info":"Older News<\/a>","tag_info":"Older News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1819,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freebart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}