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FLORISSANT, Mo. (AP) — A St. Louis man who was acquitted of murder more than 20 years ago is accused in a new case of fatally beating and stabbing a 94-year-old woman in his care, then calling a ride-hailing car service and abandoning her body at her home.
Tommie Coffer Jr. is jailed on $500,000 bond on charges of second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the Dec. 18 death of Geneva Richardson in her suburban Florissant home, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports . No attorney is listed for him in online court records.
Coffer, 54, and his mother worked as Richardson's caregivers. They called authorities Dec. 19, saying they had found Richardson body. The death initially appeared accidental. But a detective said in court records that medical examiners found three stab wounds to her face and defensive cuts to her hands.
"There were some things that didn't add up with him," said Officer Steve Michael, a spokesman for the Florissant Police Department.
Court documents show Coffer had several bags with him when the Uber collected him from Richardson's home. Police later found a trash bag, a purple latex glove, a blood-soaked pillowcase and a blood-stained black T-shirt on a burn pile near where the Uber driver had dropped Coffer off.
A St. Louis County jury in 1995 found Coffer not guilty of murder in the death of 30-year-old Gary L. Griggs, whose throat had been slashed.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
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