JERSEYVILLE – A judgment handed down a new request for trial for a jerseyville guy convicted of the death of a Highn woguy in 2010.
Prosecutors argued that there is more than enough evidence to convict Roger Carroll of Jerseyville over Bonnie Woodward’s death.
Circuit Judge Eric Pistorius set the sentence on October 1. Carroll could be sentenced to life in prison after a Jersey County jury on March 16 found him guilty of first-degree murder in Woodward’s death.
Pistorius agreed with prosecutor Crystal Uhe that there is sufficient evidence, adding fingerprints discovered in Woodward’s car in his office in Alton after Carroll heard on video denying that he was in Alton the day she killed.
Before a hearing Wednesday, Uhe said such motions for a retrial are not unusual and occasionally stand up to pave the way for an imaginable appeal of the jury’s verdict.
Carroll, 53, was charged on April 12, 2018 with Woodward’s death on June 25, 2010. He was one of the first suspects in the investigation, but the case remained dormant until April 2018.
During a video interview with Alton’s detective Scott Golike, Carroll denied being in Alton on the day of the murder. However, police discovered her fingerprints in Woodward’s Chevrolet Avalance, which parked in the parking lot of the Eunice Smith nursing home, where she worked.
Carroll’s son, Nathan Carroll, said he helped his father plan and dedicate the crime. He showed investigators the site of the fatal shooting at Carroll Farm in the Jerseyville countryside and the site where Woodward’s body burned down amid a huge pile of scrub.
The defense argued that Carroll’s lawyers had not been informed of the testimony of the witness who had known Roger Carroll next to the vehicle. Attorneys Clyde Kuehn and Scott Snider also argued that the sentencing was wrong to allow testimony about a confrontation between Roger and his wife, Monica. They argued, among other things, that the opinion issued that they failed to testify about fragments of charred bones at the site where Roger Carroll allegedly set fire.
He appointed special prosecutor in the case, along with former Madison County district attorney Jennifer Mudge, because the case concerned Madison and Jersey counties.
“Crystal Uhe addressed the state’s reaction to the defendant’s request,” said Jersey County District Attorney Ben Goetten. “He’s an impressive, natural and simple prosecutor. She made our county and the victims’ family circle proud today in protecting the state’s position. We’re lucky to have him on this team.