Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Staggs To Serve Life + 12
A Lawrence County native found guilty in June in connection with the 1992 murder for hire of Loretto resident Joanne Rigling, has been sentenced to serve life in prison.
Curtis Staggs, 47, of Frederickstown, Missouri was found guilty during trial in June on charges of a felony murder and aggravated robbery.
Staggs was indicted on the charges in August, along with Rigling’s husband, Phillip Rigling, 74, of Lawrenceburg. Phillip Rigling faces charges of criminal responsibility for first degree murder, felony murder, and aggravated robbery. Prosecutors allege that Rigling solicited, then paid Staggs $50,000 to kill his wife.
It was on the morning of June 19, 1992 that Joann Rigling, age 57, was working inside Phil’s One Stop, a market owned by she and her husband, when she was shot and killed. The culprit then made off with the store’s cash register.
Lawrence residents Jimmy Dale Hogan and Tammy Smith were later convicted in connection with the murder. Hogan was convicted during a second trial in 1997 on charges of first degree murder and especially aggravated robbery. He was given a life sentence on the murder count and twenty years on the burglary conviction.
Hogan was subsequently granted a new trial due to “ineffective counsel.” It was while preparing for that trial last year that Hogan told investigators it was Staggs who actually committed the murder.
Hogan had already served 16 years of the 20-year sentence. In exchange for his testimony, Hogan was given a plea arrangement that will allow him to be released in four more years.
Tammy Smith was sentenced to 23 years in prison after entering a best interest guilty plea to a charge of second degree murder. She has since been released.
During a sentencing hearing in Lawrence County Circuit Court Monday, Judge Stella Hargrove ordered that Staggs serve the maximum sentence for both of his crimes. The sentences, she said, are to run consecutively.
Trial for Phillip Rigling is set to get underway on December 5.
