Convicted woman receives parole in Missouri but still serving a life sentence in Iowa

After nearly eight years, members of the Women Initiate Legal Lifelines to Other Women — or the WILLOW Project — have made a significant gain in the case of a woman convicted of helping in the 1994 murder of two elderly women in Missouri and Iowa. The Missouri Parole Board granted Angel Stewart parole this month after spending 25 years behind bars. She’s still serving a life sentence in Iowa without the possibility of parole, although she and those helping her maintain she was not a part of the women’s murders. Anne Geraghty-Rathert is the director of the WILLOW Project in Missouri, which is based at Webster University, where she is also a professor in the legal studies department. Geraghty-Rathert and the organization represent women who are post appeal, incarcerated and are believed to have been wrongly convicted of crimes. Geraghty-Rathert said while getting parole in Missouri is a big step — especially as it was based on facts and not DNA evidence — there is still much work to be