MO Woman Convicted of Murder in Arson that Killed Father

Jun. 28—Tiffany Lukasiewicz showed little emotion as the jury's verdicts were read Wednesday finding her guilty of acting in concert with her twin sister in setting a fire that injured their stepmother and killed their father.

A jury of eight women and four men deliberated five hours before returning verdicts convicting the 42-year-old defendant of all three counts she was facing — second-degree murder, first-degree arson and first-degree domestic assault — in a three-day trial in Jasper County Circuit Court.

David Crowder, 68, died of smoke inhalation in a house fire Dec. 4, 2020, at 1730 S. Picher Ave. in Joplin. His wife and the stepmother of Lukasiewicz, Linda Crowder, suffered third- and fourth-degree burns to her hands, arms and face.

Police developed information in the wake of the fire implicating Lukasiewicz and her twin sister, Elizabeth Baez, in a plot to harm their stepmother. The twins suspected her of physically abusing their father.

"This fire was ignited by anger," Prosecutor Theresa Kenney told jurors during closing arguments. "Uncontrolled anger, like uncontrolled fires, often has tragic consequences."

This was a felony murder case involving the legal concept of accomplice liability, she told the jury, meaning the state did not have to prove the defendant intended to kill her father.

"I don't think she did," Kenney said.

All the state had to prove was that she aided or acted together with her sister to set the fire, Kenney said. The sisters wrongfully suspected Linda Crowder of having inflicted facial injuries on their father that he himself had told police were actually sustained in a fall, she said.

Lukasiewicz testified Tuesday that she simply wanted her stepmother beaten up and had no hand in the setting of the fire. Kenney said the evidence showed otherwise.

She sent her sister a photo of her father's injuries and told her she wanted to get back at her stepmother, Kenney remined jurors of the testimony they had heard. She let her sister into the house the night of the fire and arranged to get a man who lived in the basement out in advance. And police found valuables and keepsakes of hers — cellphone, computer, wallet, family Bible and biological mother's rosary — set outside a bedroom window where they would not be consumed by flames, Kenney said.

Defense attorney William Fleischaker tried to punch holes in the state's case with his cross-examinations and closing arguments. He argued that police set their sights on his client early on and became inclined to interpret everything they found as evidence of her guilt.

There had been testimony that an electrical cord that powered surveillance cameras in a detached garage had been cut. Wire cutters found the ground next to the severed cord were old and rusty, and there was no reason to believe the wire hadn't been severed for some time, he said.

Similarly, two cellphones Lukasiewicz owned, which police believe had been wiped of data, had no SIM cards in them. So they had nothing to wipe, he argued.

Fleischaker said firefighters and police ignored another possible explanation of two distinct burn patterns found in the living room and kitchen, indicating two points of origin for the blaze, which was interpreted as evidence of arson. He suggested that a pillow on a chair at the base of the burn pattern in the living room that ended up in the kitchen near the base of the second burn pattern had been carried there by Linda Crowder in an effort to put out its flames and might explain her injuries.

He said Lukasiewicz had taken responsibility on the witness stand "for setting the ball rolling" by sending the photo of her father's injuries to her sister and plotting to have their stepmother beaten up. She feels guilt over that, but the consequences were not foreseeable, he argued.

"That makes her stupid; that does not make her evil," Fleischaker said in asking jurors not to convict his client of anything more than involuntary manslaughter.

Lukasiewicz, who has two daughters herself, had testified that she began drinking and smoking marijuana at the age of 13 and progressed to abuse of alcohol and methamphetamine. She told jurors that she and her sister used meth the night of the fire and that she was under its influence when she made various incriminating statements during a series of police interviews.

Fleischaker argued that in the video and audio recordings of police interviews presented by the prosecution, Lukasiewicz also made statements disavowing any advance knowledge of her sister's intention to set a fire. Police and the prosecution view only her incriminating statements, and not her disavowals, as significant, he said. He further suggested that some of incriminating things she said were the result of an effort to protect her sister.

But Kenney told jurors the defendant's explanation that she was high in those interviews is a feeble attempt to explain away the admissions she made.

Judge Gayle Crane set sentencing of the defendant for Aug. 14. The defendant, who has been held without bond for 2 1/2 years, will remain in custody prior to sentencing. Her sister's case remains pending, with no trial date currently set.

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