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New search warrants issued for Coleman murdersOct 27, 2010 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- COLUMBIA, Ill. -- Police obtained fresh search warrants last week for cell phone data as they press their case against murder defendant Christopher Coleman. Associate Judge Stephen Rice signed off on the warrants on Oct. 20, which enable investigators to access "PIN" messages, a form of text messages specific to Blackberry phones, from the mobile devices of Coleman, his wife, Sheri, and his mistress, Tara Lintz. The warrants apply to all PIN logs from May 4, 2009, a day before the murders, to Oct. 13, 2010. The documents don't indicate what information, if any, was gleaned from the message logs. Police have declined to discuss the case. Chris Coleman, a former security chief for international televangelist Joyce Meyer, is accused of killing wife and two sons on May 5, 2009 at their home in Columbia, Ill. Police allege that he was trying to escape his marriage without a divorce, to be with Lintz, a girlfriend in Florida. He has pleaded not guilty. The new search warrants indicate police are attempting to re-create a timeline of the minutes leading up to the discovery of the bodies. Police arrived at the Coleman home in Columbia to check on the family's welfare after Christopher Coleman called a police officer from a gym. He had said he was alarmed that he couldn't reach his family and asked the officer to check his home, police said. At the time of the call, police said Coleman reported that he was crossing the Jefferson Barracks Bridge into Illinois, which is a few minutes from his home. Police arrived at the home and discovered Charles Manson-style messages spray painted on the home's walls. They found the dead bodies in the upstairs bedrooms. Coleman arrived about 13 minutes after he told police he was crossing the bridge, according to the documents. Police purchased eight Blackberry devices to recreate the calls to determine if Coleman "took a longer route home to ensure that members from the Columbia Police Department" discovered the bodies. Coleman is expected to stand trial in March 2011 in Waterloo. To see more of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.stltoday.com. Copyright (c) 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). |