Kenneth Baumruk - white, age 53 (resentence after appellate reversal)

Sentenced to death in St. Charles County, Missouri

By: A judge

Date of crime: 1992

Prosecution’s case/defense response: Baumruk was convicted of killing his wife during a 1992 shooting in a St. Louis Courthouse in which four other individuals were shot. Baumruk was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001, but the Missouri Supreme Court threw out the verdict stating that the case should not have been heard in the same courthouse where the shooting occurred. In the re-sentencing that occurred in February 2008, the jury found Baumruk guilty of first degree murder following an eight day trial. Baumruk’s defense lawyers argued for 2nd degree murder claiming that Baumruk was delusional when he killed his wife and shot four others during the divorce proceeding in 1992. The prosecution argued that Baumruk knew exactly what he was doing when he carried a gun in his suitcase and boarded a flight from his home to Seattle.

Prosecutor(s): JB Lasater

Defense lawyer(s): David Kenyon, Robert Steele

Sources: St. Louis Post Dispatch 3/20/07 2007 WLNR 5279617; AP Alert-MO 15:51:49