Phone records are now the focus in Van Note double murder case

The fight is on over whether cellphone records that allegedly put a Lee’s Summit lawyer near the grisly, late-night attack of her millionaire father and his girlfriend can be used at her murder trial.

The evidence is considered key in the state’s case against Susan Van Note, who is accused of killing William Van Note, 67, and Sharon Dickson, 59, on Oct. 2, 2010, at her father’s large waterfront home at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Shortly before Susan Van Note’s trial was to begin in August, defense lawyers challenged the cellphone evidence because investigators did not acquire it with a search warrant. Instead, they used a subpoena, which does not require probable cause.

At a hearing Tuesday in Laclede County Circuit Court, a sergeant with the Camden County sheriff’s office told Judge Kenneth Hayden that after Susan Van Note emerged as a prime suspect, he pursued an investigative subpoena to get the cell records — outgoing calls, texts, emails and data transfer — from AT&T.

A second subpoena was then used to determine which cellular towers transmitted those signals.

“Those are completely standard investigative procedures,” Sgt. John Stephens, who at the time of the murders was a detective, told Hayden. Both subpoenas, he added, were signed by a judge.

Van Note’s defense attorney, Tom Bath of Overland Park, repeatedly asked Stephens if the request was limited to numbers and times or whether content, such as the wording of text messages, was included.

Stephens said content was not part of the subpoena. In 2010, Stephens said, cellular companies did not keep text content.

In his motion, Bath argued that the subpoenas amounted to an “unconstitutional search” by allowing law enforcement to “peer into the day-to-day activities of Ms. Van Note.”

Hayden gave each side 20 days to file written arguments.

Court documents say cell data showed Van Note’s cellphone used a transmission tower seven miles from her father’s home in Sunrise Beach, Mo. The call was made five minutes after her father called 911.

Susan Van Note’s mother told investigators that her daughter was home in Lee’s Summit with her — 119 miles away — when the shootings occurred in Sunrise Beach.

Prosecutors say Susan Van Note killed the couple because she wanted to get her hands on her father’s money. She was executor of his will, but it named Dickson as the prime beneficiary.

Prosecutors also say Susan Van Note forged a document to have her father removed from life support after he was taken to a hospital.

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 12:51 PM with the headline "Phone records are now the focus in Van Note double murder case."