Dunham gets 15 years for robbery, other felony charges dropped.

Murder, other felony charges dropped, Dunham gets 15 years for robbery

Dunham wore sunglasses, shoes of murder victim during questioning 

A Mt. Vernon woman was sentenced to 15 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to robbing murder victim Sarah Pasco in August of 2020. Siera Dunham received the sentence as part of a plea bargain at the Jasper County Courthouse on Thursday, Sept. 22.
Dunham, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree robbery. In return for her guilty plea, nine other felony counts against her were dismissed. Those included: first degree murder, first degree assault, kidnapping, an additional count of first-degree robbery and five counts of armed criminal action.

The facts in the case
Sarah Pasco and another unidentified woman were abducted by Gary Hunter, Jr., the actual shooter in the case, in Stotts City on Aug. 16, 2020. Hunter got into a truck the women were sitting in and forced them at gunpoint to drive to a residence owned by Christina Knapp, another person who took part in the crime. The women were held there briefly until Hunter forced them to get into the trunk of a car. Before the women were forced to get into the car, Dunham, who was at the residence, told Hunter that she wanted Pasco’s sunglasses and shoes; Hunter took those items from Pasco and gave them to Dunham. Hunter then drove the unidentified woman’s truck to a rural well west of Miller. There, Hunter forced the women into the well, where he shot them both. Pasco was killed, but the other woman survived by playing dead and later crawling out of the well.
Dunham also rode to the location of Pasco’s murder in a truck with Frank Sheridan, a man with whom she was in a relationship at the time. Later, when she was interviewed about the murder by officers at the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, she came to the interview wearing the sunglasses and shoes she had stolen from Pasco; those items were in turn taken and booked into evidence.

All but one of those involved in Pasco’s murder have pleaded out
Dunham was one of nine people accused in Pasco’s murder and is the eighth person to make a plea bargain in the case. Hunter pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. The final defendant in the case, Steven Calverley, is scheduled to go to trial in Christian County in January of next year; his case was transferred there from Lawrence County on a change of venue in March of 2021.

Dunham also pleads guilty to theft
The charge in the Pasco murder case was not the only crime to which Dunham pleaded guilty. On the same day she pleaded guilty to robbing Pasco, she also pleaded guilty to a single charge of stealing. According to the probable cause statement in that case, Dunham stole a .22-caliber revolver on May 30, 2020, from a family member living in Mt. Vernon. She was later found in possession of the firearm when she was located by a Lawrence County deputy sheriff and admitted to taking it. Dunham received a five-year sentence for the charge of theft but will serve that sentence concurrently with the robbery charge.
Because first-degree robbery is considered a dangerous crime in Missouri, Dunham must serve 85-percent of her sentence, or 12 years and nine months, before she can be paroled, but she also receives credit for the time she has been held at the Lawrence County Jail, about 25 months, while awaiting trial. As of press time, she remained in custody pending her transfer to the Missouri Department of Corrections.