24 May 2017 :

A death penalty jury in Boone County has sentenced former death-row prisoner Mark Gill to life in prison without the possibility of probation or parole in connection with the 2002 murder of Ralph Lape Jr. Gill, now 46, Black, was sentenced to death for the murder on April 19, 2004 (see), but the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the death sentence because Gill's lawyer had failed to provide him adequate representation in the penalty phase of that trial (see Dec. 1, 2009). Gill's co-defendant, Justin Brown, who was separately tried, had previously received a life sentence.