Barton "Bart" McNeil- Illinois- Convicted in 1999

Going to have to clarify but I received some info that the State's Attorney also opposed DNA testing and that's why they had the hearing with the Judge who agreed with the Innocence Project. I'm trying to confirm to make sure I understood/remembered exactly what was said.

EDIT: State Attorneys objected. I accidentally said they didn't. I cleaned up (hopefully) any inaccuracies and apologize.

Chris, thanks for your input here. I feel like whether anyone wants to argue "coincidence" or not, Misook murdering her mother-in-law in the EXACT same manner Christina was killed, along with everything else you mentioned, there's no way Bart shouldn't be entitled to at least a new trial.

I'm sorry for the over 16 years going on 17 of your family not having Bart free thanks to what in my opinion was an unfair conviction, but hopefully 2016 is the year he's finally given another chance or freed entirely.

Once again, good luck!

I believe I read somewhere that your family and the Innocence Project lawyers want not just Bart's exoneration, but also for Misook to be held accountable and convicted of Christina's murder. Christina still deserves justice to this day. I think it would be easy for Prosecutors to decline to pursue a trial against Misook since she's currently likely serving the rest of her life in prison anyway with a 55-year sentence, figuring justice would have already been served (Prosecutors often decline to pursue a case against a new suspect if they're not in jail, let alone in jail), but it doesn't change the fact she should be held accountable if the new evidence shows it was her and not Bart.

It doesn't matter if she's never going to see the light of day anyway, it would still be important to have a jury say "You did it" to her, finally hold her accountable for her actions, so I wish you luck with that aspect as well.

The Barton McNeil case is an unusual case in that not only is it a wrongful conviction case, but one in which the real perpetrator of the crime, Misook Nowlin, is known. But as of right now while the State of Illinois wants to say that on account of Barton being convicted it considers his case a "solved crime", in truth, it is very much an unsolved crime.  

The first step is for Barton to gain his freedom either through a Finding of Innocence or a new trial being granted in which the McLean County State's Attorney decides he could not obtain another conviction so must drop all charges.  Barton and our family wish to promote that there exists plenty enough evidence that Misook did it, and that Barton was innocent, and that as a result, Barton deserves a Finding of Actual Innocence.  This is a formal legal document in which everyone agrees he did not do it, and that a mistake had been made.  Seriously doubt however that McLean County would be willing to do this although they should.  Errors do happen by we humans but it sure is hard for some to recognize it, let alone take responsibility for it.  And in this instance, it would be admitting to an error that was committed by others, now in other phases of their legal career, over a decade ago.

So on a few of my previous posts I've made reference to the fact that Misook was undeniably a second lead suspect in the case.  Yet Barton was prevented from using the alternative suspect theory, naming her, in his legal defense during his trial.  To hear it today from Bloomington City Police, "Misook was never considered a suspect".  And further more that not only was she the other lead suspect in Barton's case, there now exists Misook's conviction in McLean County in December 2012 of the September 2011 strangulation of her mother.  The on top of this, there were other acts of violence she committed that also show her character and capability of being the murderess of Barton's 3 year old daughter Christina in 1998.

So believing this readership does not typically get to see what a Polygraph exam looks like, am attaching the Polygraph exam of Misook that counter to police who today will say Misook was never a suspect, here you have a notated "S" on the exam that designates the person receiving the exam as a "Suspect".  You also have on this form precisely when they believed Christina McNeil was murdered which was sometime after midnight as Barton told all investigators when asked that the last time he saw his daughter was awake and in her bed (despite Barton having put her to bed around 10:30 p.m.) at 12:30 a.m.  Bart was going to the bathroom when he heard his daughter inexplicably speaking and singing.  Bart recounted that he felt it eerie that she was doing this in the middle of the night.  Who/what had awakened her?  He opened the door to the darkened bedroom and Christina was upright sitting in her bed with a book.  Barton then told her she had daycare at 8:00 a.m. in the morning and that she needed to go back to sleep.  Per Barton it was unusual for her to have awaken at the post-midnight timeframe but this was indeed the last time Barton saw his daughter alive.  Following Barton's statements to numerous detectives about Christina's post-midnight unusual awakening, it was soon after discovered by investigators that Misook had no alibi other than that she went to sleep (Misook lived alone in her apartment).  Later as the case progressed, the time period the Prosecutors made fit their prosecution agenda of Bart was to attribute the time in which Christina died to a time in which Misook had an alibi so she could be excluded for purposes of the pending Motion in Limine.  So what better way to help make the facts fit the case and let Misook off the hook for being charged in this case, enabling her in turn to go onto kill her mother-in-law 13 years later, but to declare the murder took place prior to 11 p.m., which is a time in which Misook had an alibi.  And an alibi to be believed only insofar as her closest fellow Korean immigrant friend Susi Kaiser, and pending boyfriend Don Wang (with whom she later married, sired a child, and then in an act of jealousy, strangled Don's mother that is irony at it's best or worst), can be trusted for Misook's pre-11 p.m. whereabouts.  Although Bart summoned paramedics when he awoke that his daughter appeared lifeless, nobody took the initiative to take Christina's body temperature.  Despite it would have had a set body temperature that would have easily determined very closely to the time of her death as when a body dies, it is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (plus or minus one degree), and then over the course of the next several hours, decreases to a temperature that based upon the ambient temperature in the room (or outdoors), can approximate fairly closely the victim's precise time of death.  So neither the responding Fireman, Paramedics, Assistant Coroner, Police, Crime Scene Detective or anyone else in their official capacities, take Christina's body temperature at 7:30 a.m when Barton summoned help by calling 9-1-1.  Even the Pathology report that was completed within a week or two following Christina's death, makes no mention as to time of death.  So then literally a month or two leading up to the trial, a full 7-8 months after the murder took place, voila!  A time of death has been determined that was poorly scientifically based by the local pathologist based solely upon the victim's digested stomach contents, and is a time in which Misook has an alibi (big surprise here folks!).  So on the attached form you will note my cousin Barton McNeil's reference about time of death that clearly shows a post midnight belief by everyone that then became changed to a pre-midnight time frame in order to help convict Barton.  As an FYI, we have not just this Bloomington Police Detective inference as to a post-midnight murder, but easily a dozen or more other documents some of which are Bloomington Police Detective related, and others that are State Prosecutor or County Coroner related, that show a post-midnight murder time.  So it just goes to show the length prosecutors will go in order to make circumstances fit their prosecutorial agenda.  Why play fair when you can stack the deck!?  

So I attach for this readership a polygraph exam that most on this forum have probably never seen.  The way a Polygraph exam works is that a suspect is asked base line questions like what is your name expecting few to lie.  And whether they went to school.  Where they went to school.  They throw in something like "have you ever told a lie?".  These are baseline questions and if a person is truthful, the examiner will put a "plus" next to your response.  If when asked a question your heart races or other electrodes strapped to your body show you are ill-at-ease answering the question, and it appears you are being deceptive, then you get a "minus" next to the question.  Note in the raw report that for all the questions that dealt with Christina's murder, that Misook shows a "minus" sign next to the question that shows the electrodes show that her heart was racing and she was being DECEPTIVE.  Yet the polygraph examiner, in going over the results and consulting with the lead detective in the case, Bloomington Police Detective Larry Shepherd, who per an earlier post I could tell in reviewing all of the evidence was clearly biased that Barton had done it prior to the date this Polygraph was administered to Misook, and believed in Bart's guilt from the time of his very first interview of Barton, was able to steer the examiner such that they all chalked it up to the minus signs not representing deception, but instead, it must have been problems in language and communication.  Which makes little sense as while Misook spoke Engrish, she had married an American Serviceman she met in Korea (so she had a command of the English language while there), had emigrated and lived in Bloomington for 10 years after marrying the serviceman, and had worked for several years leading up to the time Christina was murdered for AT&T as a customer service call center employee.  So instead of the detectives taking this report and saying.... hmmmm, Misook appears to be deceptive maybe we should re-double our efforts by investigating further Misook (and go knocking on the doors of her neighbors I reference in a previous post), they rationalize why the results must be wrong so that they can continue on concentrating on the wrong suspect that was Barton McNeil.  

Further I have written this audience about the unbelievable parallel of how within 90 days Misook is arrested by the same detective that is lead detective on Barton's case (Detective Larry Shepherd now retired living a comfortable life somewhere in the USA likely not giving a second thought about Barton McNeil despite all the articles in Bloomington surrounding him), that Misook commenced an act of suffocation no less against her very own 9 year old daughter for which she was convicted of.  Poor Detective Shepherd.  Here he is a career detective nearing retirement and had testified before the Grand Jury assembled for the Christina McNeil case on July 1st (week's before Misook's Polygraph exam), and all his fellow officers, and the State's Attorney, that in his professional opinion, that absolutely Barton McNeil was the one who had to have suffocated his daughter.  He must have fallen out of his chair when he was told in early September 1998, less than 90 days after Christina was murdered and Barton was sitting in the local County Jail, that he had to now go interview alternative lead suspect Misook Nowlin.  A person with whom he knew by now intimately well who had just been given a Polygraph exam two months prior for the Christina McNeil suffocation case, showing deceptive responses, and was now charged with felony abuse in an act of suffocation against her very own daughter!  You'd think a career murder detective would put two and two together.  Worse, as Misook had only just been charged in the Felony Child Abuse case, and had yet to be convicted, that the same Prosecutors responsible for trying both cases didn't feel that Misook being charged in an act of suffocation was relevant to Barton's case where his daughter had been suffocated in the middle of the night.  So despite the Supreme Court having ruled in the Brady case that any evidence that is either incriminatory or exculpatory needs to be handed over to the defense, this didn't happen in Barton's case.  

So only after following Barton's conviction, was our family able to obtain through FOIA the attached witness testimony in Misook's Felony Abuse Child case (along with testimony of others that substantiate these same facts) as given by her daughter's principal.  Does this audience think that what Misook's daughter's school principal had to say is relevant to Barton's case?  Should this testimony and the entire case itself and all related documents been disclosed to Barton's defense attorney so that he could use this sworn testimony by a School Principal (akin to a public servant), and other information pertaining to thi8s case, in countering the pending Motion in Limine that was to take place in less than two weeks from the time this testimony was given?  As an American Citizen who has recited the words "and justice for all" many times, I would certainly think so.   But the prosecutors did not.  It was as though these two incidents were wholly unrelated to one another from the Prosecutors and the Lead Detectives' viewpoint.  Makes no sense to me and again is stacking the deck to the Prosecutor's favor in order to obtain a wrongful conviction.

For the day when Bart is granted a retrial, and I believe everyone reading these threads and views the attached would believe him to deserve one, this testimony is the kind of evidence that would be allowed be introduced into his new trial that would likely prevent his ever being convicted a second time.  In addition he and his attorneys would be requesting a jury trial and not agreeing to a Bench Trial as he'll have a seasoned and capable defense team who would never suggest Barton accept a Bench Trial unlike Barton's prior appointed defense counselor did.  And instead the attached evidence (Polygraph exams are not admissible however but Misook's felony conviction against her daughter would be) should be introduced in Misook's murder trial of Christina McNeil instead.

All of this lends support that Misook Nowlin is the diabolical, pathological lying (proven in her subsequent murder case as she repeatedly denied murdering her mother-in-law), and asphyixiating monster she is.  She strangled her mother in law and was convicted.  She was found guilty of the attached incident involving her daughter less than 90 days after Christina McNeil was suffocated in her bed.  What else does our judicial system require to say that the prison doors for Barton should be opened today! Misook strangled her mother-in-law September 2011.  Bart at that moment in time had already been serving 13 years in his wrongful conviction.  Now it's going on 17 years as his wrongful conviction slowly moves its way through the courts (the saying "the wheels of justice turn slowly" is so very true).  Bart is now 56 years of age.  And his daughter knows her father is innocent and knows who the true killer was that night.  Bart to this day has not been able to properly grieve and mourn her loss.  Gaining a conviction of Misook for this heinous crime is what keeps him going.  Thank you readership for your support and prayers!  And hope you found these two attachments of further interest.  Many more documents like these and others can be found on www.freebart.org

Update: DNA testing continues and should be completed in roughly 90 days.

freebart.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/March-9th-2016-update-to-Freebart-and-Facebook.pdf

Wow, just read the FreeBart Facebook update that Misook has actually requested a new trial. If she gets a new trial before Bart does, I'll be besides myself. (I sort of am already).

www.pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/woman-convicted-of-murder-wants-new-trial/article_aa99dc1e-bf47-51c5-8872-d79fd5d47a67.html