A man appeared in Doniphan County court Thursday in connection with the alleged theft of a vehicle belonging to a St. Joseph man whose body was found in the Missouri River.

Christopher Colhour, 40 of St. Joseph made his first appearance before Judge Roy Roper on a level 7 felony charge of theft. A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for June 27th.

As we previously reported, officials with the Doniphan County Sheriff’s Office began searching the Wolf River for a missing St. Joseph man on May 22. Five days later, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) and Doniphan County Sheriff’s Office said the body in reference to a death investigation was recovered in the Missouri River just south of St. Joseph. The body was identified as 64-year-old Daniel Purvis.

Colhour was charged with the theft of a vehicle belonging to Purvis and KBI said further charges are pending. As of Thursday no additional charges have been filed. We have placed a call to the Doniphan County Attorney’s Office to see if any further information regarding charges can be released at this time and are waiting to hear back.

A 40-year-old Christopher D. Colhour appears to have a criminal history in Buchanan County including two guilty pleas to felonies of failure to register as a sex offender stemming from 2009 and 2010.   In 2012, he was sentenced to serve three years in the Missouri Department of Corrections in each of those charges.  According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Sex Offender Registry, in April and September of 1999 Colhour attempted indecent liberties with a child in the Kansas towns of Elwood and Troy.

Missouri online court documents show most recently, in December of 2016 Colhour was charged with a first-degree felony of tampering with a motor vehicle in Buchanan County and pleaded guilty in March.  According to a probable cause document filed in the case, Colhour was in possession of a stolen vehicle belonging to Advanced Auto reported taken from Independence two days prior. Court documents stated in December that Colhour had been homeless for the past eight months. Detective C. Davis with the St. Joseph Police Department said in the PC statement that Colhour had previous arrests for failure to appear, shoplifting, burglary, criminal damage to property, aggravated criminal sodomy and stealing.  Det. Davis said Colhour also had a conviction for burglary and arrests in Nebraska. Sentencing in the case was supposed to take place May 22 in Buchanan County but court documents state the defendant failed to appear, that was the same date KBI said Colhour was arrested in Kansas.

Colhour remains without bail in the Doniphan County Jail.