Charges dropped against former MU baseball player

Michael Cole said he woke from nightmares every morning for the past 10 months. He said going to class was difficult. But now, Cole said, he doesn’t want to revisit the past. And because Boone County assistant prosecuting attorney Connie Sullivan signed paperwork Thursday dropping the charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action against Cole, he won’t have to.

“I was extremely happy,” Cole said of his reaction to the news. “I hope I can just be a better person out of it.”

Cole, an MU student and former baseball player, was arrested last April on charges he stabbed Christopher Clark in an early-morning dispute over alcohol, Sullivan said. She said interviews she and Cole’s defense attorney, Milt Harper, conducted with at least 24 witnesses led her to believe that a jury could have been convinced Cole was trying to defend himself, a friend or his property at the time the stabbing took place.

“I view this as saying, ‘Look, the system works,’” Sullivan said. “Looking for the truth can be an arduous process.”

Cole and a friend had left an early-morning party across the street from Cole’s apartment, Sullivan said, when some of the people still at the party decided to confront Cole and his friend about a bottle of Absolut Peppar they believed the two had stolen. Nothing had been stolen, Sullivan said. She declined to release the name of Cole’s friend.

Sullivan said they found Cole’s friend hiding in the passenger’s seat of his car, which was parked in the driveway of Cole’s apartment. Cole’s friend got out of the car, and the partygoers surrounded him, demanding that Cole come outside as well, Sullivan said.

Cole heard what was happening, looked out the window to see the confrontation taking place between his friend and the partygoers, and opened the door holding a knife he had picked up in the house, Sullivan said. After that, there is conflicting testimony as to what took place, Sullivan said.

“It was just people getting caught up in late hours and alcohol and poor judgment all the way around,” Sullivan said. “Everybody had different memories.”

Cole said he would play baseball again if he were allowed, but that the “chances of that are pretty slim.”

Cole’s father expressed relief that the charges had been dropped.

“It’s a load off our mind,” said Terry Cole. “We’re happy the truth prevailed.”