Virginia Twenter

Status: Incarcerated

Virginia Twenter told her crime story on Women Behind Bars and recently it has been on the show Reasonable Doubt thanks to her cousin. She remains incarcerated at this time. As seen on the shows, she was convicted of killing her father and stepmother for financial gain.

Her appeal includes:

The body of J.D. Wells was found by his daughter, Anna Laas, in the living room of the Wells' home at about 7:15 a.m. on May 5, 1988. About noon the same day the body of Marilyn Wells was found in a field approximately eight miles from the Wells' home. Her body was approximately fifty-six feet from a gravel road. Both deaths were caused by gunshot wounds. J.D. Wells had been shot in the back and in the chest. Marilyn had been shot once in the chest. She appeared to have been shot at the site where her body was discovered.
On the evening of May 4, 1988, between 9:30 and 11:30 p.m., a neighbor of the Wells was watching television when she heard two gunshots coming from the Wells residence.

Ballistic evidence indicated that the fatal shots were fired by a .38 caliber pistol registered to Hugo Twenter, appellant's ex-husband. Hugo had discovered the gun missing from his pickup truck as he was leaving Virginia Twenter's residence one evening in April of 1988. He had reported the missing gun to law enforcement officers prior to the murders. There was also evidence that defendant knew where Hugo kept the gun in the pickup truck. After the gun was taken, defendant indicated to Hugo that she could produce the gun. The gun was found on May 6, 1988, in a creek south of the Sedalia city limits, not many miles from the scene of the crime.