Craig Wood sentenced to death penalty for killing Hailey Owens

Judge Thomas Mountjoy sentenced Craig Wood to the death penalty Thursday for abducting and killing Springfield 10-year-old Hailey Owens in 2014.

Wood, 49, was convicted of first-degree murder in November, but the jury could not come to a unanimous decision on sentencing.

The decision fell to Judge Mountjoy, who had the option of sentencing Wood to the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Mountjoy picked the most severe punishment.

Hailey's mother, Stacey Herman, sat in the front row of the courtroom Thursday. She arrived a few minutes after the hearing began, wearing a purple hoodie and blue jeans and holding a roll of Mentos in one hand.

Mountjoy asked Wood to stand for his sentencing.

As Mountjoy sentenced Wood to death, Herman leaned into the shoulder of the lead investigator in the case. The investigator, Detective Neal McAmis, wrapped his arm around her.

A few rows behind Herman, Wood's mother, Genie Wood, clutched a tissue in her left hand.

Craig Wood took a gulp of water from a Styrofoam cup and was led out of the courtroom by bailiffs.

The 40 or so people in the courtroom stood as Mountjoy walked out of the room.

A man in a jean jacket — Hailey's step-grandfather — yelled to the judge: "God bless you, Your Honor."

Herman walked over to Genie Wood. They embraced and spoke for a while, then left the courtroom.

Before the sentencing, Mountjoy denied a pair of motions filed by Wood's defense attorneys — one asking for a new trial and one calling judge-imposed death sentences unconstitutional.

In handing down the sentence, Mountjoy talked about the "death of innocence" associated with this case — not only Hailey’s innocent life, but also the loss of innocence in the Springfield community.

“It is an exceptional case, an extreme case, I think, in all regards,” Mountjoy said.

Before Mountjoy sentenced Wood, he listened to brief statements from Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson and Wood’s attorney Patrick Berrigan.

Patterson said the death penalty is in place for cases like this.

“It is true that the death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst,” Patterson said. “This is that case.”

Patterson said the impact of crime on others is often compared to a stone being thrown into a pond. In this case, he said, it is more like the tsunami caused by an earthquake.

Wood’s attorney, Berrigan, asked the judge to sentence Wood to life in prison without the possibility of parole and let him die on God’s time.

Berrigan said it should take a unanimous decision by a jury to sentence someone to death, not the decision of one judge.

“Life in this country is a precious commodity, precious,” Berrigan said. “It should take 12 people to all agree to deprive someone of life.”

Patterson spoke to reporters in a conference room after the sentencing.

Nearly four years ago, Patterson gave a press conference outside the Greene County courthouse after he charged Wood with killing Hailey. He nearly broke down then.

"Those emotions are all still there," Patterson said Thursday after the sentencing.

The death sentence was "nothing to celebrate," Patterson said, but it was some "measure of justice" for Hailey.

Patterson said he believes the death penalty will be upheld upon appeal.

When asked if he had anything to tell the community, Patterson said this case of random violence was an anomaly in Springfield.

"We are a safe community," Patterson said. "This case really was an outlier."

Patterson also thanked the witnesses who reported the abduction and the police officers who worked the case.

A Platte County jury convicted Wood of first-degree murder after a four-day trial in November.

Wood abducted Hailey while the 10-year-old girl was walking in the 3200 block of West Lombard Street on Feb. 18, 2014.

The abduction caught the attention — and anger and sympathy — of thousands of Springfieldians.

It seemed impossible.

A man who witnessed the abduction sprinted out of his garage and nearly reached the truck before it sped away.

If not for a drainage ditch, Carlos Edwards testified, he might have gotten there in time to stop Wood.

In the hours after she was snatched off the street, police and civilians scoured neighborhoods looking for Hailey. Residents watched the search play out in real time through TV broadcasts and online news updates.

At that point, no one — except Wood — knew that Hailey was dead.

News of Hailey’s death, and the details surrounding it, shocked the community.

Prosecutors said Hailey was essentially tortured by Wood for the last 45 minutes of her life. According to prosecutors, Wood raped and sodomized the 10-year-old in his bedroom, then took her down to his basement, where he shot her in the head while her hands were bound.

The night after the abduction, Patterson struggled to find his voice as he promised justice for Hailey in a news conference outside of the courthouse.

Three days later, an estimated 10,000 people marched in a candlelight vigil on Commercial Street in Springfield. The Jefferson Avenue Footbridge, where the march ended, was illuminated in purple, Hailey’s favorite color.

Many others in Springfield left their porch lights on in memory of Hailey and donated to her memorial fund.

During the trial, Hailey’s pastor Pat Findley testified about the impact of Hailey’s death on the Springfield community.

He said after Feb. 18, 2014, parents were less likely to let their children play outside in the front yard or walk to school by themselves.

“It’s different now,” Findley said.

For more than three years, residents and local media followed Wood’s case as it plodded its way toward trial.

During that time, Hailey’s mother Stacey Herman formed an unlikely bond with Wood’s parents, Jim and Genie.

Jim and Genie Wood traveled to Jefferson City last year to advocate for a piece of legislation dubbed Hailey’s Law that would speed up the Amber Alert process for abducted children.

The Woods posed for a photo with Herman and her then-husband Jeff Barfield at the state Capitol in January 2017.

A month later, Barfield was indicted on a federal child porn charge.

An investigator told the News-Leader that Hailey was not a victim in Barfield’s case, but Barfield is accused of distributing child porn from 2012 to 2016 — before and after the girl’s abduction.

In April of last year, Herman went public with her desire for prosecutors to accept a plea deal in the case that would send Wood to prison for the rest of his life to avoid a trial.

Wood’s attorney Berrigan said he offered that deal to prosecutors, but they did not accept.

During the November trial, Herman did not attend on days with the more graphic testimony, like when the medical examiner took the stand.

After the trial, she told reporters she would be at peace with either sentence for Wood – life or death.

Wood was an employee of Springfield Public Schools at the time of the abduction. He worked at Pleasant View Middle School as a football coach and supervisor of in-school suspension.

School officials said they never noticed any inappropriate behavior from Wood. But at trial, testimony described Wood as a functioning alcoholic who smoked pot daily and kept photos of middle school girls along with fantasy writings in his bedroom dresser.

The gun used to kill Hailey was one of 18 found in Wood’s home.

At Wood's trial, several people close to Hailey took the stand and described Hailey as a bubbly girl who was always smiling and would often shift between "girly girl" and "tomboy."