Missouri Supreme Court denies 2nd appeal in Craig Michael Wood case

A second appeal in the case of a Springfield man convicted of killing 10-year-old Hailey Owens in 2014 has been denied.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled unanimously Jan. 13 to deny Craig Michael Wood‘s post-conviction appeal. Retired Judge Thomas Mountjoy had ruled against Wood’s appeal in a 2024 evidentiary hearing in Greene County Court in 2024.

Wood previously appealed his sentence in 2018, which the motion court rejected and the Supreme Court affirmed his sentence in 2019.

In this appeal, Wood requested a new trial, a new sentencing to impose life without parole and a new evidentiary hearing, based on the idea that his lawyers were ineffective and that Mountjoy’s status as a Springfield resident prevented the judge from being impartial in the 2018 sentencing.

“The motion court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law are not clearly erroneous,” wrote Judge Zel M. Fischer in the decision.

Who is Craig Michael Wood and why is he facing the death penalty?

Wood is a former middle-school football coach who, in 2018, was sentenced to death for the 2014 abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Owens of Springfield.

Wood was convicted of first-degree murder in November 2017, but the jury was unable to agree on whether to sentence him to a life sentence or the death penalty. Mountjoy, who was the judge in that trial as well, chose the death penalty.