ST. LOUIS – An accused interstate shooter is free tonight after a judge dismissed her case over repeated delays. Only FOX 2 was in the courtroom for the major development.
Bernice Thomas was charged with shooting at someone on Interstate 70 in St. Louis five years ago. During repeated trial delays, police say her son, Deshawn Thomas, was captured on video executing a homeless man. Her son still faces the murder charge, but Bernice Thomas is now free to go, because of a failure to prosecute.
The judge dismissed the I-70 shooting case without prejudice, which means it can be refiled, but there’s uncertainty about whether it will be. The case was scheduled for a bench trial Friday, and there was no sign any witness showed up.
Bernice Thomas, 40, was charged with six felony counts in connection with a July 6, 2018 interstate shooting. A car was hit on westbound I-70 at East Grand. No one was injured.
Court records reflect that the defendant objected to justice delays, beginning on December 2, 2019. Yet repeated trial delays continued – six times, including one court example in which the record stated, “This cause was set for jury trial on [October 2022], however counsel for the state is in trial in another case.”
Thomas has mostly been on an ankle monitor, except for the last four months, as she’s been in jail since April because of GPS violations. We spoke with the defendant’s mother Carla Thomas who told us, “It was pretty much heartbreaking to watch her walk around in that ankle monitor all these years and believing in my heart that she had nothing to do with what they charged her with.”
Thomas does not dispute, however, that it’s her 23-year-old grandson Deshawn Thomas on video – police say – shooting a man in the back of his head on Tucker Boulevard on Feb. 27, 2023.
Thomas said, “That was the lowest that I could have been punched – ever. I had just called him two days earlier and asked him if he had anywhere to go and if he did, please come to me.”
She says she’s been turned away for years in getting her grandson mental health help. Like one time when she said her grandson, “…cut a cross in his head. He said he wanted to be saved from the demons.”
Thomas said mental health professionals always told her they couldn’t help her grandson because he was a grown man.
She says news of her daughter’s newfound freedom is not cause for her to celebrate. She explained, “She’s probably gaining her freedom, but in her mind she’s not free.”