SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Springfield police say three people are jailed after an investigation into a string of burglaries in which elderly victims who lived alone were threatened in their homes.
The Springfield News-Leader reports police say seven similar burglaries occurred beginning last August, triggering an investigation.
Joseph Smiley, of Ash Grove, and Hershel Marsh, and Stephen Steele, both of Springfield, are jailed in Greene County on multiple counts of burglary, robbery and armed criminal action. Online records do not indicate they have attorneys.
Police say the victims, generally in their 80s and 90s, were threatened with guns and told they would be killed during the burglaries. The suspects sometimes returned to the same home more than once. One woman was injured.
The suspects generally entered the homes by cutting through window screens.