In the early morning hours of July 4, 1990, police in Saint-John, Missouri, found 44-year-old Thomas Frederick Lannert dead inside his home in the 3700 block of Eminence Boulevard. He had been shot twice with a rifle while sleeping on his living room couch — once in the shoulder and a second, fatal shot to the head. The scene first suggested an intruder but investigators soon turned attention to the household.

Detectives questioned Lannert’s two daughters, 18-year-old Stacey Ann Lannert and 14-year-old Christy. Inconsistencies in their accounts led to Stacey’s confession that she and her sister entered through a basement window, Stacey retrieved a rifle and shot their father, then sought to dispose of the weapon with a friend. Prosecutors alleged financial motive, citing forged checks, use of the victim’s credit cards, and an inheritance stake; they also charged that the sisters had tried to hire a hitman, Ronald Barnett, who was later arrested on evidence-tampering charges for selling the rifle Stacey provided.

Christy pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and was sentenced to five years, serving two and a half. Stacey was convicted in 1992 of first-degree murder and armed criminal action and received life without parole under Missouri law at that time. Was anyone in the neighborhood aware of tensions in the household before July 4, 1990?