Where is Rowan Ford's step-father now?

NEWTON COUNTY, Mo. — With the impending execution of convicted child-killer Christopher Collings, the spotlight shifts to his co-defendant, Rowan Ford's step-father, David Spears.

Spears, along with Collings, had originally confessed to the rape and murder of Rowan Ford in 2007. In all of his court filings, Collings asserts that Spears was actually the "mastermind" behind the plan to rape and murder the little 9-year-old girl.

Ultimately, Spears made an agreement with prosecutors to dismiss the murder and rape charges and he pleaded guilty to felony child endangerment and hindering prosecution. In 2012, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Shortly after his release from prison, but before he was off probation, Spears went to work for the Missouri State Public Defender's office. He was hired by his trial attorney's husband. State records show his date of hire was June 27, 2016. With credit given for time served between his arrest and his conviction, Spears was released in March of 2015. He was placed on probation until November of 2017. This means Spears worked for the state public defender's office for one year and eight months before his probation ended.

Collings' attorneys had argued that because Spears worked for the public defender's office, there was a conflict-of-interest, and among other things, prevented their client from pleading to lesser charges. The public defenders office served as counsel for both men.

According to federal court documents, one of Collings' public defenders raised the objection within her office.

Valerie Leftwich said, "He (Spears) was hired by Stephen Reynolds, the district defender in the Clayton, Missouri trial office. Stephen is the husband of Sharon Turlington, David's former trial attorney."

Leftwich gave a sworn declaration as part of the Federal Traverse filing in Collings' Motion for Writ of Habeas Corpus in the Western District of Missouri. The "traverse" is the document filed in Habeas motions that deny every allegation made by the opposing side.

In Collings' case, his public defender argued that the conflict of interest argument should have been raised earlier and added to the ineffective counsel defense. This was listed as one of the many reasons Collings should not get the death penalty.

In their pleadings, Collings' attorneys said, "Counsel recognized that a potential conflict existed; however, because of their divided loyalties or fear of Mr. Collings’s response to the conflict, counsel failed to alert the court or alert Mr. Collings of the conflict. Because of this non-disclosure, Mr. Collings himself was not aware of the claim until after his post-conviction proceedings had concluded."

We reached out to David Spears at the Public Defender's Office in West Plains today to ask if he had a comment about Chris Collings' execution and he said, "Ma'am, you called me at work. I have no comment. Please don't call my place of work again."

We reached out to Thomas Flack, the person listed as the District Defender for West Plains, essentially Spears' boss, and have not received a response.

Our own Jeremiah Cook is in Bonne Terre for Collings' execution. We will have more from him and some law enforcement officials who worked on Ford's case, that were there for the execution.