Incest-murder case involving dad goes to jury (Cass County, Missouri)

The fate of dad DANIAL RINEHART is now in the jury's hands.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/20/1890292/rinehart-incest-murder-case-goes.html

Posted on Tue, Apr. 20, 2010 12:31 PM

Rinehart incest-murder case goes to jury
By DONALD BRADLEY
The Kansas City Star

The jury is out in the Rinehart incest case.

The defendant, Danial Rinehart, opted not to testify in his own defense against allegations of his incestuous relationship with a teenaged daughter.

His actions produced four babies, only one of which survived.

His attorney called no witnesses, and after closing arguments, the jury retired at 11:45 a.m.

The prosecution’s final witness, Teresa Carmichael, Cass County Sheriff’s Department detective, testified that a search of Rinehart’s jail cell eight months after his arrest turned up a letter he had written to his daughter.

“To my feonsay, I love you a hole bunch,” it began. In it, he made a reference to her having his baby.

Rinehart, 49, is charged with second-degree murder, statutory rape and two counts each of incest, child endangerment and abandonment of a corpse.

During closing arguments, Janeal Matheson,Rinehart’s attorney, challenged all the charges against her client.

She raised questions whether Ashley Rinehart, the alleged victim is even Rinehart’s biological daughter and about the circumstances of the death of the baby, Jack, from which stem the second-degree murder charges against Rinehart.

Matheson suggested the child’s death in the cold camper where Rinehart’s family lived fit the characteristics of Sudden Death Syndrome, or crib death. It was even more likely, she said, that Ashley accidentally smothered her baby, who was ill.

On Monday, Ashley, 20, tearfully recounted the years of abuse that she said began with she was 5.

She also provided detailed information about the four babies, the remains of two of which were found in sealed coolers on the farm where lived Rinehart’s family, which included three other daughters.

For much of the time, the family traveled in a truck and overhead camper.

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