Judge allows ‘someone else did it’ defense in Lee’s Summit lawyer’s murder trial

One day before the start of the trial, a judge on Monday cleared the way for a “someone else did it” defense in the case of a Lee’s Summit lawyer accused of killing her millionaire father and his girlfriend.

Susan Elizabeth Van Note, 48, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and forgery in a crime that occurred Oct. 2, 2010, at Lake of the Ozarks.

The girlfriend, Sharon Dickson, 59, died at the scene. William Van Note, 67, was taken to a hospital in Columbia, where he died four days later, after the defendant showed up with a durable power of attorney for health care and asked doctors to remove her father from life support.

Authorities say Susan Van Note, an attorney who specialized in end-of-life matters, forged the document.

At a hearing Monday in the Laclede County Courthouse, Van Note’s defense team argued that they should be allowed to point a finger at a man who, they allege, had a long-running financial dispute with William Van Note.

Tricia Bath, one of three attorneys for Van Note, said the money was in the thousands of dollars and that Van Note had tried to get the man out of a rental property he owned.

Prosecutors objected that there was no evidence linking the man to the crime scene and that allowing the defense request would bring “rumor and innuendo” into the trial.

Circuit Judge Kenneth Michael Hayden ruled for the defense.

Jury selection is set for Tuesday morning with opening statements perhaps coming in the afternoon.

Van Note did not speak at Monday’s hearing. She sat with her team, which includes Bath’s husband, Thomas Bath, a prominent criminal lawyer from Overland Park.

On the other side is Camden County Prosecutor Michael Gilley, who was elected last year and is working his first murder trial.

Kevin Zoellner, an assistant Missouri attorney general, will assist Gilley.

In another decision against prosecutors, Hayden said there could be no mention that the defendant’s mother had been convicted and sent to prison in 2005 for forging a power of attorney document and taking money from a trust fund. Hayden said the conviction could not be mentioned because it had been expunged.

The mother, Barbara Van Note, provided her daughter’s alibi for the night the killings occurred. She told investigators that Susan Van Note was home with her that night in Lee’s Summit.

Prosecutors are expected to present evidence that the defendant’s cellphone pinged a transmission tower seven miles from her father’s home. The call was made five minutes after her father called 911, court documents say.

Lee’s Summit is 119 miles, or two hours, from Sunrise Beach, Mo., where the house was located.

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.

Investigators say she forged the power of attorney document dated in 2009 from one she’d prepared for a client three days before the shooting.

Also, the two persons listed as witnesses to William Van Note’s signature later said Susan Van Note brought them the document after her father had been shot, court documents say.

The trial is expected to last two weeks.

This story was originally published June 8, 2015 at 3:20 PM with the headline "Judge allows ‘someone else did it’ defense in Lee’s Summit lawyer’s murder trial."