WHITE CLOUD, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court announced Thursday that they would not hear an appeal case connected to the 2004 murder of White Cloud teen Amanda Lankey.
Candace Wallis-Baumgartner, a former White Cloud police officer, is awaiting trial in Newaygo County for perjury after police say she lied under oath during the investigation into Lankey’s murder. The case has been on hold while she appealed the charges.
Amanda Lankey was 13 years old when she disappeared from a friend’s house in White Cloud. Her body was discovered two weeks later in Manistee National Forest. Autopsy results revealed that she died of blows to the head.
Both Wallis-Baumgartner and her son Marcus Wallis face perjury charges related to the murder. In May, the Michigan Court of Appeals declined to hear her request. It was unclear when the case would move forward in Newaygo County.
No murder charges were ever filed in the Lankey murder case. The main person of interest, Cecil Wallis, committed suicide in November 2011. It was his house that the teen disappeared from in June 2004. He is Wallis-Baumgartner’s brother.
Some of her remains were kept as evidence in the case, but Lankey’s mother was able to bury them during a memorial ceremony in February.
