Lonnie Erby

• Alibi

● Defendant’s girlfriend testified that defendant was with her during the times of two of the attacks. This testimony was corroborated by her daughter. ● Defendant’s sister testified to dropping off clothes for defendant at his home around the time of fourth attack. ● Clerk at a Rent-a-Center testified that, based on receipts, defendant and his girlfriend were at the store at the time of the first attack.

• Eyewitness
• Forensic Evidence

• Serology

• Invalid

The victim and Erby were both O secretors. The analyst testified that “the victim had intercourse with someone who was either a type O secretor, in which case the H antigen came both from the victim and the suspect or the victim and the male or the person she had intercourse with was a non-secretor and everything came from her. We know that it could not have been a type A person or a type B person because neither of those antigens were present, therefore, she had intercourse with either an O secretor or a non-secretor.” See Part II.A.1 for a description of the problem of masking and non-quantification and discussion of similar cases.

• Intraracial Identificaiton
• Victim

• Lineup
• Photo array

Yes ● Show-up ● Suggestive line-up ● Suggestive remarks ● Victims not told attacker might not be in line-up

First victim was also told that the man she identified in the line-up was the same that she had identified in the photo array. Second victim noted, “Was this the one man, one picture you picked out, was he the only man who had a beard or moustache? A. Yes, sir.” Third victim was shown a photo of Erby from the St. Louis Post Dispatch prior to viewing the line-up. “They said, ‘can you identify this man from the paper,’ and I looked at it.” Fourth victim testified: “Sixth district came and picked me up from the house. And they told me that they needed me down to the station to identify the man because they believe that they have him.” They told her that they had arrested someone.

Yes ● Initial nonidentification ● Discrepancy in description – facial hair, hair

One victim did not initially identify Erby, explaining, “I didn’t recognize him, I was scared,” so was asked to “go take a second look” at the line-up. In police report, one victim described a moustache, but no beard – at trial she testified that he had a “little beard.” Two other victims described no facial hair in their testimony. An officer said one had mentioned a beard. One victim described “short” hair, while another described longer hair and another described a medium afro.

• Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
• Sentencing — Noncapital

State v. Erby, 735 S.W.2d 148 (Mo. App. 1987)
Erby v. State, 796 S.W.2d 927 (Mo. App. 1990)
Erby v. State, 829 S.W.2d 488 (Mo. App. 1992)