Father convicted in baby’s killing seeks new trial

Bill Gang

Thursday, May 14, 1998 | 10:05 a.m.

The murder case involving a 10-month-old girl who was killed in Las Vegas but whose body was unceremoniously hauled to Arizona and burned in a desert gully both tugged at the public's heart strings and raised its ire.

Now the case may be headed for a second trial for the baby's father and convicted killer James Meegan.

Comments by some Nevada Supreme Court justices during a hearing Wednesday on the appeal of Meegan's murder conviction showed concerns about the way prosecutors handled the case.

The 1990 shaking death of Francine Meegan and the disposal of her body in a central Arizona desert wash was the family's closely guarded secret for more than five years. The body had been found by cowboys driving cattle through the gully but the baby's identity remained a mystery, haunting law enforcement officers and many of the citizens around Prescott.

It wasn't until a former boyfriend of the baby's aunt uncovered bits of the story and called police in Las Vegas.

When Meegan and his wife, Lillian, were unable to adequately answer police questions as to their baby's whereabouts, they were arrested and the truth eventually spilled out.

The Meegans were able to hide the baby's disappearance because few knew of Francine's existence. She had been adopted out as a newborn to a California couple the Meegans knew in exchange for a down payment on a home, a car and cash.

But Francine was "repossessed" by the Meegans eight months later when additional demands for money were not met.

James Meegan, 41, was convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder in District Judge Sally Loehrer's courtroom and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by the judge.

Meegan's attorney David Schieck argued to the high court that there were several "troubling issues" in the trial that justified a new trial:

Chief Justice Charles Springer told Monroe he was "troubled" by the comment that an innocent man would deny culpability.

Monroe responded that she merely was "parroting" what the television reporter had asked and Meegan's answers were then played for the jury.

Meegan didn't testify at his trial but commented at his sentencing that he never intended to kill the baby and called the prosecutions allegations, "A big lie."

But he never denied shaking the baby in a fit of rage.

"I didn't murder my child, I want to make that very, very clear," Meegan told Loehrer in asking for leniency that she didn't give him.

Loehrer already had sentenced Lillian Meegan to an 18-year sentence on a child neglect charge for failing to get medical care for her dying daughter. After being violently shaken, the girl fell into a coma and died despite the Meegans' efforts to save her using CPR.

During Wednesday's arguments, Springer also expressed concern that the district attorney's office uses the filing of the death penalty as a "bargaining chip" to coerce plea bargains in murder cases.

"I've seen it time after time," he said.

The justices took the case under advisement and will hand down a decision in the next few months.