On March 18, 1997, two men exited a minivan and walked into the lobby of a bank in St. Louis, MO wearing ski masks and armed with semi-automatic rifles. Shots were fired and a security guard, Richard Heflin, was shot and fatally wounded. Billie Allen, aged 19, was arrested at about 2am the next morning and taken to police headquarters where he remained in an interrogation room, handcuffed to a table, for the next several hours. Later that morning, he was positively identified in a line-up by two forestry workers who had come across an individual in the woods. According to the police, after being told of these identifications, Billie Allen said he wanted to discuss the robbery, recanted his request for a lawyer and made statements incriminating himself in the murder. Billie Allen was charged with committing an armed bank robbery and using a firearm to commit a crime of violence. He was convicted on both counts and sentenced to death.

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