COLUMBIA, Mo. — A 66-year-old Georgia grandfather was convicted Friday of killing a Missouri waitress nearly 35 years ago before going into hiding for the next three decades.
Jurors deliberated for about six hours in Columbia before deciding that suburban Atlanta resident Johnny Wright was guilty of second-degree murder in the August 1976 disappearance and death of 23-year-old Rebecca Doisy. The former University of Missouri student’s body was never found.
Wright was charged with murder in 1985, after an acquaintance said Wright admitted killing Doisy. He wasn’t arrested until 2009, after he sought a criminal background check for a job application at the police department in Lawrenceville, Ga.
Columbia police said Wright lived under the assumed identity of Errol Edwards for years in Seattle, Texas and most recently Georgia, where he raised a family.
Jurors had to decide whether the circumstantial evidence linking Wright to Doisy overcame the lack of physical evidence, including proof that she died.
