Ralph E. Davis | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Ralph E. DAVIS

Classification: Murderer

Characteristics: Parricide

The body was never found

Number of victims: 1

Date of murder: June 10,

1986

Date of arrest: April

1988

Date of birth: March 8,

1938

Victim profile: Susan Davis, 35 (his estranged wife)

Method of murder: Shooting

Location: Boone County, Missouri, USA

Status: Executed by lethal injection in Missouri on April 28,

1999

clemency petition

Ralph Davis became the first person in Missouri to be prosecuted using DNA analysis. He was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering Susan Davis, his estranged wife in Columbia-- even though her body was never found.

Boone County Prosecutor Joe Moseley (later a state senator) secured the conviction with extensive circumstantial evidence. The police formally charged him 20 months after her disappearance, soon after they found her car-- the driver's side window shot out and its interior splattered with dried blood and bone fragments-- in a Jefferson City garage rented by Ralph Davis.

Samples of the tissue matched the DNA pattern of the couples' children. Witnesses testified he had threatened to kill her; she had also filed a couple restraining orders against him after he had beaten her.

State of Missouri v. Ralph E. Davis

814SW 2d 593 (Mo. Banc 1991)

Ralph E. Davis was executed on April 28, 1999

Case Facts:

On June 10, 1986 Caroline and Company, the employer of Mrs. Susan Davis, reported her missing to the police when she did not report to work. Davis had last been seen on June 9, 1986 when she left work. Evidence indicated that she had also cashed her paycheck that day at the Century State Bank.

On March 7, 1988 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.

Storage facility records indicated that the unit had been rented by Ralph Davis, husband of Susan Davis, on June 10, 1986. The Sheriff’s Department had been contacted after Davis failed to pay the rental on the storage 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’ business and house officers discovered Susan Davis’ 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 and 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. Mrs. Davis had filled a prescription for the drug on June 9, 1986.

The Police investigation further revealed that Davis had filed for divorce from Susan Davis on June 11, 1986. Davis had gone to Cedar Rapids, Iowa on June 14, 1986 where, with the help of local law enforcement officials, he secured the custody of his two children from Mrs. Davis’ parents. Davis was later awarded custody of his children in a default divorce which ordered Susan Davis to pay child support.

Between June and July 1986 Davis forged three checks on his wife’s personal bank account in the amount of $ 900 and also forged his wife’s signature on a change of beneficiary life insurance form to make himself the beneficiary of the policy.

During the next twenty months Davis consistently lied to police that he did not know where his wife’s car was and that he believed that Mrs. Davis and "run off" to Texas to get a job at the Westinghouse Corporation to be with her alleged lover.

Legal Chronology

1986
6/10 – Susan Davis of Columbia, Missouri disappears

1988
3/7 – Susan Davis’ Ford Escort automobile is found in a storage unit near Jefferson City, Missouri.

1989
3/14 – Davis goes on trial in Boone County, Missouri for the murder of his wife Susan Davis and is found guilty of murder first degree. The jury recommends the death penalty.
4/25 – Davis is sentenced to death for the murder of his wife.
8/31 – Davis files a post –conviction relief motion in the circuit court of Boon County.

1990
7/31 – The Circuit Court of Boone County denies Davis’ post-conviction relief motion.

1991
7/23 – The Missouri Supreme Court affirms the conviction, sentence and the Circuit Court’s denial of Davis’ Post-conviction relief motion.

1992
1/13 – The United States Supreme Court denies Davis’ petition for writ of certiorari.
1/27 – Davis files a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

1997
6/4 – The District court denies Davis’ petition for writ of habeas corpus.

1998
5/22 – The United States court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit denies Davis a certificate of appeal.

1999
5/22 – The United States Supreme Court denies Davis’ petition for writ of certiorari.
5/29 – The Missouri State Supreme Court set April 28, 1999 as the date for the execution of Ralph Davis.

Ralph Davis, 61, 99-04-28 - Missouri

A 61-year-old man who killed his estranged wife was executed by injection early Wednesday, the oldest Missouri inmate put to death since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977.

Previously, the oldest inmate executed since Missouri resumed the death penalty in 1989 was Emmett Nave, who was 55 when he was put to death in 1996.

Ralph Davis was convicted of killing his wife, Susan, in part on the strength of DNA evidence. The body of the 35-year-old woman was never found.

His last words, in a written statement, were 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."

Mrs. Davis disappeared in 1986 after leaving her job at Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Columbia. 3 weeks earlier, she had filed assault charges against her husband. She claimed he was abusive and had once held a gun to her head.

On the same day she vanished, prosecutors said, Davis bought a .12-gauge shotgun from a sporting goods store. Davis told police he didn't know what had become of his wife. He claimed she abused drugs and speculated that she had run away with another man, perhaps to Texas.

Investigators lacked solid evidence until 1988, when they found the woman's car in Davis' storage locker near Jefferson City. Shotgun pellets had blasted through the driver's side window. Bone fragments, blood and human tissue were found inside. The investigators were looking for her 1986 Ford Escort since Davis had failed to keep up with payments.

A medical examiner determined there was so much blood it could only have resulted from a fatal wound. DNA evidence showed that Mrs. Davis was the victim.

In appeals to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, and in a clemency request to Carnahan, Davis claimed bad lawyers put him in his predicament.

Davis was originally charged with 2nd-degree murder in the death of his wife. The 1st-degree murder charge was filed only after Davis' original lawyer filed for a continuance in the original case. Prosecutors had warned that if the continuance was filed, they would upgrade the charge to 1st-degree murder.

"What lawyer would put his client at risk like that?" Davis asked.

Susan Davis' mother and brother have said that if Davis admitted to the crime, and said where he hid her body, they would consider joining in a clemency request.

"Why should I do that when I didn't do anything?" Davis said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Robert Davis, the couple's 21-year-old son, was reunited Monday with his father for the 1st time since Robert and his sister, now 17, were taken away following the arrest of Ralph Davis in 1988.

"I love him," Robert Davis told the AP. "He is my last living parent.

Despite the fact of what he's accused of, he's still my dad."

Davis' attorney, Elizabeth Carlyle, said he suffers from a disorder that causes him to block out traumatic events. Even if he committed the crime, he wouldn't remember it, she said.

Ralph Davis, then a Columbia insurance agent, told police he didn't know what had become of his wife. He claimed she abused drugs and speculated that she had run away with another man, perhaps to Texas.

Prior to the national moratorium on the death penalty, Allen Lambis, 73, died in the gas chamber in Jefferson City in 1944 for a murder in Mississippi County. John Williamson, 63, was executed in 1939 for a murder in Ste. Genevieve County.

Davis becomes the 5th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Missouri, and the 37th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on Jan. 6, 1989.

Missouri has never executed more than 6 men in a year. That total could be matched by the end of May. Jessie Lee Wise is 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. But 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.

Davis also becomes the 37th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 537th overall since America resumed capital punishment on Jan. 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press and Rick Halperin)

Ralph Davis, an insurance broker, murdered Susan Davis, his wife in 1986. Susan had been having an unhidden affair and Davis killed her as a result.

The trial was the first in Missouri in which DNA fingerprinting was used. The body of the 35-year-old woman was never found. Mrs. Davis disappeared in 1986 after leaving her job at Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Columbia.

3 weeks earlier, she had filed assault charges against her husband. She claimed he was abusive and had once held a gun to her head. On the same day she vanished Davis bought a .12-gauge shotgun from a sporting goods store.

Davis told police he didn't know what had become of his wife. He claimed she abused drugs and speculated that she had run away with another man, perhaps to Texas.

The investigators were looking for her 1986 Ford Escort since Davis had failed to keep up with payments. A medical examiner determined there was so much blood it could only have resulted from a fatal wound. DNA evidence showed that Mrs. Davis was the victim.

Ralph E. Davis