Ardie Knighten

Charges say James A. Lawson, 30, whose last known address is a rehabilitation clinic in Wood River, called police from a hospital in St. Louis to report that two days earlier he had struck someone twice with a baseball bat at a hotel, and the person may be dead. Lawson was charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the beating death of Ardie Knighten, 43, of the 4600 block of Iowa Avenue in St. Louis.