Independence, MO: Harbour guilty in beating death of girlfriend Lynn Kelly was strangled, and bludgeoned with baseball bat

By Michael Glover - michael.glover@examiner.net
The Examiner
Posted Feb 12, 2010 @ 12:26 AM
Independence, MO —
A Jackson County jury found Demetrius Harbour guilty of slaying his girlfriend in August 2008.

The jury, nine men and three women, spent 1 1/2 hours in deliberation to decide the guilt of Harbour, 45, of Independence.

Lynn Kelly, his girlfriend and a mother of two children, was violently strangled and pounded in the head with a baseball bat at their home at 18190 Manor Drive in eastern Independence on Aug. 14, 2008.

Jackson County Circuit Judge John Torrence, who presided over the nearly weeklong trial, will sentence Harbour on March 24.

Key evidence for prosecutors were testimony from Kelly’s teenage daughter that heard her mother screaming early that morning and the sound of a metal object striking something repeatedly.

Harbour’s fingernail scrapings matched Kelly’s DNA. Prosecutors told the jury Harbour did not wash away all of Kelly’s DNA from his hands after strangling her neck.

“She (Kelly) left a little piece of her behind to tell us who killed her,” said Jackson County Assistant Prosecutor Traci Stansell in closing arguments. “That’s how we know.”