Columbia business owner one of 16 people pardoned by Gov. Parson
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Gov. Mike Parson granted 16 pardons on Friday afternoon in his last round of clemency while in office.
A Columbia business owner was one of the people who received a pardon.
A judge sentenced Dimetrious Woods, who owns Essentialz and Woods Auto Spa, to 25 years for drug trafficking in 2007. He was sentenced under a statute that the state legislature repealed in 2014. Parson commuted Woods' sentence to house arrest in 2020.
Woods says he hopes Governor-elect Mike Kehoe will keep an open mind about everyone who applies for clemency.
"Just consider individuals overall that may have made a mistake. That it is valuable to give humans a second chance, which is what I believe God did for us," Woods said.
Parson also gave a posthumous pardon to Celia, an enslaved Callaway County teenager who was executed for killing her owner, Robert Newsom in 1855. Celia killed Newsom to stop him from sexually abusing her, according to a chronology of the case put together by the UMKC Law School.
In addition to the 16 pardons, Parson also commuted nine sentences, including the sentence of former Kansas City police officer Eric DeValkenaere.
DeValkenaere was sentenced to six years in prison after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal police shooting of Cameron Lamb, 26.
