Court denies LaGrone’s request for new trial

SPRINGFIELD — An appeals court says a Clinton man convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s three children shouldn’t get a new trial.

Maurice LaGrone Jr. is serving a life sentence.

The (Bloomington) Pantagraph (http://bit.ly/rosURP ) reports that LaGrone contends his attorneys made a mistake by not asking the judge in his 2006 trial to allow child endangerment as a possible verdict in addition to murder.

But the 4th District Appellate Court’s opinion states that there’s “not even slight evidence” that LaGrone committed the lesser offense instead of first-degree murder.

LaGrone and his former girlfriend, Amanda Hamm, each were charged with murder after her car became submerged in Clinton Lake with her three children in the back seat. Hamm, however, was convicted of child endangerment.

She was released from prison last year.

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Information from: The Pantagraph, http://www.pantagraph.com