Tonya Lea Lewis, a 12-year-old girl from Nevada, Missouri, was last seen on June 13, 1980, after spending part of the day at the municipal swimming pool and later playing with friends at the housing project where she lived with her mother, Shirley Lewis. Witnesses reported she was seen with 22-year-old painter Martin Priest, who had played basketball and joined a game of Indian Ball with local children. Tonya left the game by herself and did not return.Tonya’s badly decomposed body was recovered floating in a farm pond south of town on June 15, 1980.

The autopsy could not immediately determine a cause of death because of decomposition, though investigators treated the case as a homicide. Tire tracks and disturbed grass near the pond suggested a vehicle had been driven close to the water.

A jury convicted him in March 1981 and he received a 25-year sentence, but the Missouri Court of Appeals overturned that conviction in 1983 on the grounds the cause of death could not be definitively established, and Priest was released on the murder charge.