Thus far, many of the major issues in the Maryville, MO rape case have been attributed by the Coleman family as the fault of Nodaway County Prosecutor Robert Rice. Well on Wednesday, Kansas City local news station KCTV reported that Rice had asked the judge to promote a special prosecutor to the case because “the public trust in our criminal justice system must be upheld at all times.”
Rice’s words came after several higher level officials, including Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder and state Senator Kurt Schaefer, had suggested the case be reopened and investigated. During a press conference, Rice said it was the CNN interview where the Colemans declared they’d talk was the first he’d heard of it, and stood by his previous assertion that the reason the case was closed before was because the family had invoked their 5th amendment right not to testify. According to Rice, they understood the case would be dismissed if they didn’t talk, but as that records is closed and not available to the public, he can’t reveal the contents of that deposition.
‘Their cooperation was not there. At the end of the day, I figured that this was going to become an issue,” he said to a slew of reporters. “Trust me this, I’m standing in front of you today honestly wishing I could hand each and every one of you the documents.”
The Colemans don’t deny that the deposition exists, but say that the day after making it, they changed their minds. Melinda Coleman told the Kansas City Star, “that she didn’t want to put her daughter through the anguish of reliving the incident with only a misdemeanor charge at stake.” She said yet again that this was “only after the two felony charges — sexual assault and sexual exploitation of a minor — were dropped on March 13, 2012” and that Rice did not return her phone calls.
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