In the summer of 1980, the quiet town of Nevada, Missouri, was shaken by the disappearance and death of a young girl. Twelve-year-old Tonya Lea Lewis, a Caucasian female, was last seen on June 13, 1980. She had spent part of her day at the municipal swimming pool with friends. Later, she was seen with Martin Priest, a 22-year-old painter who was working at the housing project where Tonya lived with her mother, Shirley Lewis. Priest had reportedly played basketball with Tonya and joined in a game of 'Indian Ball' with a group of children. Tonya left the game by herself and was never seen alive again.
Two days later, on June 15, 1980, the search for Tonya came to a tragic end when her badly decomposed body was discovered floating in a farm pond south of the city. Although an immediate cause of death could not be determined from the autopsy due to the condition of her body, authorities treated the case as a homicide. Investigators found tire tracks near the pond and noted that the grass in the area was disturbed, suggesting a vehicle had been driven close to the water's edge. Witnesses who found Tonya's body observed that her shirt was rolled up around her chest and had briars on it, and there were scratches on her back. The death was later determined to have been caused by drowning.
The investigation soon focused on Martin Priest, who had been seen with Tonya on the day she vanished. Nearly a month after Tonya’s body was found, Priest was arrested and charged with capital murder. At the time of his arrest for the murder, he was already in jail on charges of forgery and theft. While he awaited trial, his wife, Genieve Priest, attempted to break him out of jail but was unsuccessful. In March 1981, a jury convicted Martin Priest of Tonya Lewis's murder, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
However, the legal saga did not end there. Priest appealed his conviction, arguing that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to prove that Tonya's death was the result of a criminal act. In 1983, the Missouri Court of Appeals agreed with his argument and overturned the conviction, ruling that the cause of death could not be definitively established. Martin Priest was subsequently released from prison for the murder of Tonya Lewis. He later became a suspect in other crimes and was eventually convicted in 2018 for the 1984 murder of another young girl, Tammy Rothganger, for which he received a life sentence.
