Kansas City man, acquitted of murder, remains in jail months later

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City man acquitted of a 2021 murder more than nine months ago is still sitting in a Missouri prison.

In November, his lawyer worked in the prosecutor’s office that charged Dave Steele, but he left that office to go defend him because he believed Steele was innocent and said this was an injustice.

Steele’s family believes that injustice continues.

“This is devastating, excoriating, it’s heart wrenching. I don’t know a dictionary word, it’s unbelievable, how is that,” his sister Charlene Wright said.

A level of frustration for a family that believes now they are in the fight of their lives. Fighting for freedom of Dave Steele, a man found not guilty by a jury of his own peers of a 2021 murder outside of a Westport restaurant.

“We paid big money to have him exonerated, for the law to prevail, and the law failed him,” Wright said.

Steele was first convicted of murder in 1971 as only a 16-year-old He would get out on parole years later, his family says turning his life around.

While out on parole, he had several run ins with the law, but it is the last parole violation that’s keeping him behind bars that puzzles the mind. It’s a violation that the court of law has said clearly was something he did not do.

Yet, he’s behind bars and the parole board ruled in December that they will keep him there until at least December of 2025. This on the heels of a federal judge ruling, back in October, that some of the things the Missouri Parole Board was doing could be unconstitutional.

This ruling made by a district court judge and upheld in federal court.

“Let’s re-write how the parole board should conduct themselves, let’s put eyes on them,” Wright said.

The family is still desperate for what exactly to do next. FOX4 reached out to the department of corrections about this. They would not comment on the decision, saying they are separate from the parole board.

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