Ralph E. Davis

Parties and identity

• Ralph E. Davis was the estranged husband of Susan Davis.
• Susan Davis was the victim and Ralph E. Davis’s wife.

Timeline

• 1986-06-09 — Susan Davis was last seen after leaving work.
• 1986-06-10 — Caroline and Company, Susan Davis’s employer, reported her missing to police when she did not report to work; Susan Davis had been last seen on June 9, 1986 when she left work.
• 1986-06-10 — Storage facility records indicated that the unit was rented by Ralph Davis, husband of Susan Davis, on June 10, 1986.
• 1986-06-11 — Ralph Davis filed for divorce from Susan Davis.
• 1986-06-14 — Davis went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and, with the help of local law enforcement officials, secured the custody of his two children from Susan Davis’s parents.
• 1986-03-07 — Deputies of the Boone County Sheriff’s office were notified that a Ford Escort automobile owned by Susan Davis had been found in a storage facility in Jefferson City.
• 1986-07 — Between June and July 1986 Davis forged three checks on his wife’s personal bank account in the amount of $900 and forged his wife’s signature on a change of beneficiary life insurance form to make himself the beneficiary of the policy.
• 1988-03-07 — Deputies notified that Susan Davis’s Ford Escort automobile was found in a storage facility in Jefferson City.
• 1989-03-14 — Davis was tried in Boone County, Missouri for the murder of his wife Susan Davis and was found guilty of murder first degree; the jury recommended the death penalty.
• 1989-04-25 — Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife.
• 1989-08-31 — Davis filed a post-conviction relief motion in the circuit court of Boone County.
• 1990-07-31 — The Circuit Court of Boone County denied Davis’s post-conviction relief motion.
• 1991-07-23 — The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, sentence, and the Circuit Court’s denial of Davis’s post-conviction relief motion.
• 1992-01-13 — The United States Supreme Court denied Davis’s petition for writ of certiorari.
• 1992-01-27 — Davis filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
• 1997-06-04 — The District court denied Davis’s petition for writ of habeas corpus.
• 1998-05-22 — The United States court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit denied Davis a certificate of appeal.
• 1999-05-22 — The United States Supreme Court denied Davis’s petition for writ of certiorari.
• 1999-05-29 — The Missouri State Supreme Court set April 28, 1999 as the date for the execution of Ralph Davis.
• 1999-04-28 — Ralph Davis was executed on April 28, 1999.

Background

• Susan Davis disappeared in 1986 after leaving her job at Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Columbia.
• Three weeks earlier, Susan Davis had filed assault charges against her husband.
• Susan Davis claimed he was abusive and had once held a gun to her head.
• Evidence indicated that Susan Davis had cashed her paycheck on June 9, 1986 at the Century State Bank.
• Davis threatened to kill Susan Davis, and she filed restraining orders against him after he had beaten her.
• Davis had purchased a .12 gauge shotgun on June 9, 1986.
• Davis told police he did not know what had become of his wife.
• Davis claimed Susan Davis abused drugs and speculated that she had “run off” to Texas to get a job at the Westinghouse Corporation to be with her alleged lover.

The offence

• Ralph Davis was convicted of murdering his estranged wife, Susan Davis.
• The body of Susan Davis was never found.
• A first-degree murder charge was filed after Ralph Davis’s original lawyer filed for a continuance in the original case.
• Davis had been originally charged with second-degree murder in the death of his wife.
• The charge was upgraded to first-degree murder after prosecutors warned that they would do so if the continuance was filed.

Investigation

• On 1988-03-07, deputies were notified that Susan Davis’s Ford Escort automobile had been found in a storage facility in Jefferson City.
• Storage facility records indicated that the unit had been rented by Ralph Davis on June 10, 1986.
• The Sheriff’s Department had been contacted after Davis failed to pay the rental and the company was in the process of reclaiming the storage unit.
• During the investigation, sheriff’s deputies discovered that Davis had purchased a .12 gauge shotgun on June 9, 1986.
• In a search of Davis’s business and house, officers discovered Susan Davis’s diamond wedding ring from a previous marriage and the .12 gauge shotgun that Davis had purchased on June 9, 1986.
• Tests later revealed that the shotgun had been fired.
• Visual inspection of the vehicle revealed that the driver’s window had been broken.
• Large amounts of dried blood, bone fragments, and other forensic evidence were found indicating that someone had been shot inside the car.
• Evidence indicated that the victim had recently used the drug tetracycline.
• Susan Davis had filled a prescription for tetracycline on June 9, 1986.
• A medical examiner determined there was so much blood it could only have resulted from a fatal wound.
• DNA analysis matched the DNA pattern of the couple’s children to establish Susan Davis as the victim.
• The trial was the first in Missouri in which DNA fingerprinting was used.
• The police formally charged Ralph Davis 20 months after Susan Davis’s disappearance, soon after they found her car.
• The evidence included that Davis consistently lied to police for the next twenty months that he did not know where his wife’s car was.

Arrest

• Ralph Davis was arrested in 1988.
• Robert Davis, the couple’s 21-year-old son, was reunited with his father for the first time since Robert and his sister, now 17, were taken away following Ralph Davis’s arrest.

Trial

• 1989-03-14: Davis went on trial in Boone County, Missouri for the murder of his wife Susan Davis and was found guilty of murder first degree.
• The jury recommended the death penalty.
• 1989-04-25: Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife.
• Davis asked: "What lawyer would put his client at risk like that?"
• Davis maintained: "Why should I do that when I didn't do anything?" in an interview with The Associated Press.
• Davis’s attorney, Elizabeth Carlyle, said he suffered from a disorder that caused him to block out traumatic events, and said that even if he committed the crime, he wouldn’t remember it.

Sentencing

• Davis was sentenced to death on April 25, 1989.

Appeals

• 1989-08-31: Davis filed a post-conviction relief motion in the circuit court of Boone County.
• 1990-07-31: The Circuit Court of Boone County denied Davis’s post-conviction relief motion.
• 1991-07-23: The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, sentence, and the Circuit Court’s denial of Davis’s post-conviction relief motion.
• 1992-01-13: The United States Supreme Court denied Davis’s petition for writ of certiorari.
• 1992-01-27: Davis filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
• 1997-06-04: The District court denied Davis’s petition for writ of habeas corpus.
• 1998-05-22: The United States court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit denied Davis a certificate of appeal.
• 1999-05-22: The United States Supreme Court denied Davis’s petition for writ of certiorari.

Outcome

• Ralph Davis was executed by lethal injection on April 28, 1999.
• Davis became the first person in Missouri to be prosecuted using DNA analysis.
• Boone County Prosecutor Joe Moseley (later a state senator) secured the conviction with extensive circumstantial evidence.

Aftermath

• Ralph Davis, then a Columbia insurance agent, was executed.
• His last words were written in a statement to his son and daughter-in-law:

  "My body is gone but my spirit is with you. I'm just going to sleep. Love you. Dad."

• Robert Davis told The Associated Press:

  "I love him. He is my last living parent. Despite the fact of what he's accused of, he's still my dad."

• Susan Davis’s mother and brother said that if Davis admitted to the crime and said where he hid her body, they would consider joining in a clemency request.
• Davis had filed for a divorce, and custody arrangements were made after he secured custody of his two children from Susan Davis’s parents; he was later awarded custody of his children in a default divorce that ordered Susan Davis to pay child support.
• Between June and July 1986, Davis forged three checks on his wife’s personal bank account and forged his wife’s signature on a change of beneficiary life insurance form to make himself the beneficiary of the policy.
• A clemency request was made to Carnahan, and Davis claimed bad lawyers put him in his predicament.
• Ralph Davis became the fifth condemned inmate to be put to death in Missouri that year and the 37th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Jan. 6, 1989.

Other details

• Davis was 61 years old at execution.
• A previously executed Missouri death row inmate referenced was Emmett Nave, who was 55 when executed in 1996; another was Allen Lambis, 73, who died in the gas chamber in Jefferson City in 1944.
• John Williamson, 63, had been executed in 1939 for a murder in Ste. Genevieve County.
• Jessie Lee Wise was scheduled to die by injection May 26 for beating a woman to death with a pipe wrench in suburban St. Louis in 1988.
• Darrell Mease was scheduled for execution in February for killing the paraplegic grandson of his former drug partner; Carnahan commuted Mease’s sentence to life in prison after a personal request from Pope John Paul II during the pope’s January visit to St. Louis.