MILLER COUNTY, Mo. — The Eldon man charged with murdering a local teen in 1984 has a bloody history, but one marked by an ability to evade multiple murder convictions.
Martin Priest was charged on Monday with Capital Murder in the 1984 disappearance of 15-year-old Tammy Rothganger, nearly 32 years after she was last seen.
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Priest, who is currently serving a life sentence in the Kansas Department of Correction for a first-degree murder conviction, is no stranger to murder charges.
In fact, he has been charged in five separate murder cases since 1980, in both Kansas and Missouri. But he only carries one conviction. He has been acquitted in two cases and won an appeal and his release in another.
Now he awaits trial of the most recent charges, in a justice system still reeling from the black eye it received in late-2015 after the dismissal of Aaron Fisher, who confessed to raping his infant daughter.
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A Successful Appeal
In 1980, Priest was charged with capital murder in the death of 12-year-old Tonya Lewis in Nevada, Mo. He was later convicted of second-degree murder, by a jury of his peers. However, Priest only served a couple of years in the Missouri Department of Corrections before the conviction was overturned on an appeal in 1983.
On Sept. 20, 1983, Priest was released from prison based on the Missouri Court of Appeals decision which stated the prosecution did not present sufficient evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he had intentionally caused Lewis’ death.
Court records indicate that on June 13, 1980, Priest, only 22 years old at the time, had been working for a painting crew in Nevada, Mo., 125 miles from Eldon.
He was painting the apartment in which Tonya Lewis resided with her mother, Shirley Lewis. Sometime during the afternoon hours, Priest overheard a conversation between Lewis and her friend Kelly Schumacher discussing going to the municipal pool that afternoon.
Priest told his employer that he was going to a job interview, but later he, along with his step-daughter, arrived at the municipal pool where Lewis and Schumacher were. He allegedly made arrangements with Lewis to play basketball later in the day.
During the basketball game, Lewis was injured and left to go home. That was the last time she was seen alive.
Around 9 p.m., Priest left the basketball game, stating that he was going to pick up his wife. However, court records note that he did not pick up his wife. Around 10:30 p.m., Lewis' mother approached Priest at his apartment to inquire where her daughter was because she had not returned home.
Priest told her that the young girl had left the basketball game after she gotten a splinter in her finger and said she was going home. He said he then returned to his apartment and had not left for the rest of the evening.
Three days later, Lewis' badly decomposed body was located floating in a farm pond, south of Nevada.
Physical evidence found at the scene indicated that a vehicle had been driven through the grass and stopped at the pond where footprints indicated that someone exited the driver's side of the vehicle and walked to the passenger side of the vehicle.
Lewis' body was identified by an older sibling.
When questioned, Priest told law enforcement that he had gone fishing that evening at a different pond. However, it was discovered that the pond that Priest said he had gone fishing at only had about 18 inches of water and his fishing poles were found to be dusty. Investigators noticed that Priest had scratches on the backs of his legs from his knees to his ankles and when he was questioned about the scratches he became angry. After asking to photograph his legs, Priest refused and later had a letter sent to the sheriff stating that he did not wish to be further interrogated and he would not consent to photographs and asked that he be appointed an attorney.
While investigators were able to link Priest’s involvement with Lewis the day she was last seen, court records indicate the judges did not believe that was sufficient enough evidence to uphold a second-degree murder charge, and he was ordered to be released.
Nine months after his release, Tammy Rothganger went missing from Eldon, on May 16, 1984. Priest had been living with Rothganger and her mother for a few months prior to her disappearance.
An Acquittal
Sometime between May 16, 1984 and November 16, 1984, Priest traveled to Wichita, Kan. where he is believed to have murdered 15-year-old Katrina Cheely.
According to the Wichita Eagle, Cheely went missing from her home on Nov. 16, 1984, and her body was found in a culvert on Feb. 28, 1985. At that time, Priest was charged with Cheely's murder and was indicated by law enforcement to have been a friend of her mother.
In 1987, Priest was acquitted of Cheely's death.
A Conviction & Another Acquittal
When Priest was charged with Cheely's murder, he was already incarcerated and facing trial in the murders of William Mayhugh and Freida Bayliff.
Mayhugh and Bayliff were murdered on Dec. 25, 1984. According to the Eagle's coverage of the murder, 25-year-old Mayhugh died of exposure after he was shot in the head with a .32-caliber pistol following a robbery. Priest was later convicted of that murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Three days after the murder of Mayhugh, Bayliff was found dead, lying face-down on a broken waterbed in her home, on Dec. 28, 1984. A jury later found Priest not guilty in Bayliff's murder.
Since Priest's incarceration in the Kansas Department of Corrections for the murder of Mayhugh, he has become eligible for parole five times. Each time, he was denied. According to current KDOC records, Priest is being housed in the El Dorado Correctional Facility in El Dorado, Kan.
State records reveal he is again eligible for parole on Aug. 16, 2016. If he is released, Priest will be extradited to Missouri to stand trial in the death of Tammy Rothganger, provided the case is not disposed of by then.
