TUNAS, Mo. (AP) — Two men have been charged with visiting the scene where a southwest Missouri couple was killed in a shootout and not telling authorities they had seen the bodies.
Kody Brian Wilson-photo Dallas County
Twenty-one-year-old Kody Brian Wilson and 26-year-old Cody Depriest are charged with abandonment of a corpse in the deaths of Joe and Brandy Allen. The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office says in a Facebook post that the couple died in a gunfight with two other suspects, Billy Sage Medley and Jeffery Stevenson, after interrupting a robbery.
The post says Wilson and Depriest went to the scene three times without reporting the deaths. Wilson also is charged with hindering prosecution for allegedly harboring Medley.
Cody O. Depriest-photo Dallas Co.
Stevenson was arrested last week and charged with murder; Medley remains on the run.
No attorneys are listed for them in online court records.
BOLIVAR, Mo. (AP) — A replica World War I era biplane crashed and overturned on landing at an airport in southwest Missouri, leaving the 67-year-old pilot trapped but unhurt.
The crash happened Sunday evening at the Bolivar Municipal Airport, about 40 miles north of Springfield.
Police said in a news release that the pilot from St. Charles said the tail of the aircraft slid out upon landing, causing the aircraft to veer off the runway. The release says the plane overturned in a ditch on the east side of the runway.
According to the Flight Safety Foundation , a nonprofit that aims to improve and promote aviation safety, the aircraft was a replica Sopwith Camel, a British WWI single-seat fighter aircraft.
Two men were seriously injured in a crash near Tarkio Saturday night.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, 41-year-old Daniel P. Beckman of Westboro, Missouri, was driving a Chevrolet Silverado north on US-59 in Atchison County, three miles north of Tarkio at 8:30 p.m. Saturday. The vehicle went off the east side of the road, hit a utility pole and ran through part of a cornfield. The vehicle then went up an embankment and overturned while airborne. The vehicle landed on its wheels off the east side of US-59 at the bottom of an embankment in a creek bed.
Beckman and a passenger, 22-year-old Trev M. Martin, also of Westboro, were transported to Community Hospital-Fairfax and then to the University of Nebraska Hospital in Lincoln for treatment of serious injuries.
According to the crash report, neither occupant was wearing a seatbelt.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Authorities are searching for a vehicle whose driver left the scene of a double fatal crash in suburban Kansas City.
Suspect vehicle photo courtesy Overland Park Police
The crash happened Saturday afternoon in Overland Park. Police are seeking a dark blue or dark gray Honda that may have struck the side of a car that then veered across the center line. The car then crashed into another vehicle, killing both drivers.
Fatal Saturday crash scene-photo courtesy KCTV
Rockhurst High School identified one of the victims as senior Matthew Bloskey, saying in a statement that the school’s community is “devastated.” And family identified the other victim as 20-year-old Samuel Siebuhr, of Kansas City, Kansas.
Localized flash flooding is possible this morning across areas along and northwest of I-35. This afternoon, isolated storms are possible, bringing localized flooding and severe weather potential. Severe weather is possible in the yellow and yellow hashed areas, while localized flash flooding is possible in the yellow hashed area. More moderate to heavy rain is expected across the entire area Tuesday morning through Wednesday. Here’s the 7-day forecast from the National Weather Service:
Columbus Day: Showers and possibly a thunderstorm, mainly before noon, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Patchy fog between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. High near 80. South wind 5 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
Tonight: A chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 10 p.m. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 66. South southeast wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
Tuesday: Showers and possibly a thunderstorm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. High near 74. South southeast wind 7 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.
Tuesday Night: Showers and possibly a thunderstorm before 1 a.m., then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1 a.m. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Low around 48. South southwest wind 7 to 9 mph becoming west northwest after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
Wednesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 58. Northwest wind around 11 mph.
Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 39.
Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 55.
Thursday Night: A chance of showers after 1 a.m. Partly cloudy, with a low around 40. Chance of precipitation is 40%.
Friday: A chance of showers before 1 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 53. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Friday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 41.
Saturday: A chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 57. Chance of precipitation is 50%.
Saturday Night: Showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 40. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Fresh off a victory that cemented his latest, controversial, pick for the nation’s high court, President Donald Trump came to Kansas Saturday night hoping to transfer his popularity in the state to two fellow Republicans.
Supporters lined up early in a chilly rain to see President Donald Trump at a Topeka rally on Saturday. NOMIN UJIYEDIIN / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
Trump arrived just hours after Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court — the most controversial appointment to the court in generations. He was in regular rally form, playing to an adoring crowd of some 10,000 thrilled supporters at the Kansas Expocentre in Topeka.
He peppered his speech with the usual condemnation of Democrats, dismissal of media for cranking out critical coverage he sees as “fake news,” and talk of the political victories that have marked his first year and a half as president.
Trump trounced Hillary Clinton in Kansas two years ago. On Saturday, he championed the campaigns of two candidates locked in far tighter races.
Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach finds himself in a dead heat with Democratic state Sen. Laura Kelly. Political newcomer Steve Watkins is struggling to keep an eastern Kansas congressional seat in Republican hands, a job made all the harder after reporting showed he exaggerated key parts of his biography.
Kobach and Trump have been kindred souls from the start. Both have shared often-unsubstantiated claims about crime waves by people immigrating to the U.S. illegally. They’ve both also trafficked in debunked theories about those immigrants voting illegally by the millions.
When Trump launched a commission last year aimed at exposing what he contended was widespread vote cheating in the 2016 election, he turned to Kobach as his key adviser on the issue. That panel dissolved prematurely without any findings.
On Saturday night, Trump lauded Kobach. He portrayed Kelly as someone unconcerned about illegal immigration and eager to lavish those who come to the country illicitly with welfare benefits.
“(Kobach) is a tireless champion for border security,” the president told the crowd. “He’ll protect your family. … Laura Kelly … supports giving welfare benefits to the illegal aliens.”
Earlier, Kobach had taken the stage and repeated a line he’s used repeatedly in the campaign in praise of Republican-authored federal tax cuts.
The president’s visit to Topeka drew supporters for him — and other Republicans.
CREDIT NOMIN UJIYEDIIN / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
“I want to do for Kansas, what President Trump has done for America,” he said.
That prompted the crowd to chant: “Kobach! Kobach! Kobach! …”
He also hit on themes that have come to define his political career — an aggressive stance toward immigration that paints immigrants as an existential threat to the country’s well-being.
“I’m so glad that America gets it and knows that illegal means illegal,” he said to cheers. “It’s time to put Kansans first, not illegal aliens.”
He touted a law he pushed through the Kansas Legislature requiring voters to produce proof of citizenship to register.
“It’s time,” he said, “for other states to care about proof of citizenship, too, just like Kansas.”
Kobach did not note that a federal court rejected the law, and he was held in contempt for failing to follow court orders on the issue.
The president used the Watkins race to warn the Republican audience that if GOP candidates such as Watkins lost, Congress would be lost to Democrats’ “radical agenda … a socialist takeover of healthcare.”
Watkins once again reminded the audience of his military record — graduating from West Point and deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He did not bring up the issues that have gotten him into trouble — claims he built a large business that wasn’t hisand supposed heroics after a Nepal earthquake that his companions have said simply weren’t possible.
Instead, he gloried in the moment of sharing a stage with Trump.
“Kansans can do anything. I’m proof of that. I grew up a few miles away, and here I am standing up next to the leader of the free world,” Watkins told the crowd.
In his time in war zones, he said, “I have seen the devil. But I have also seen fighters. Donald Trump is a fighter.”
Much of the rest of Trump’s speech was a combination of throw-out-the-bums lines he’s been using since his presidential campaign began in 2015. (“This is your time to choose … whether we turn backward to the failure and frustration of the past or continue to an American greatness of the future.”)
Saul Cervantes was among the protesters who gathered outside the Topeka arena where the president spoke.
CREDIT NOMIN UJIYEDIIN / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
He also took credit for a booming economy that’s produced record-low unemployment rates and a bullish stock market, for dumping a nuclear arms deal with Iran, and for recrafting the NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico.
“The only reason to vote Democrat,” he said, “is if you’re getting tired of winning.”
It was just the sort of stick-it-to-’em rhetoric the crowd was eager to hear. Hundreds began lining up on a chilly morning outside the hall where Trump would come in the evening. Many were drawn by the success he represents to them.
“He’s not one who’s going to be swayed by political money,” said Nathalie Higerd of Gem, Kansas. “And he’s working to improve our economy.”
Trump had many good things to say about his presidency, much of which partisans would challenge. But they’d be hard-pressed to deny he already has a legacy on the federal bench. Within hours of his Topeka speech, he added another monumental win when the Senate voted to approve Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the new justice was sworn in.
Yet that choice split the country, partly because Kavanaugh is so conservative. It also marked a loss for the #MeToo movement that’s risen in the last year in response to celebrated cases of powerful men assaulting and harassing women.
A high school acquaintance of Kavanaugh’s, Christine Blasey Ford, testified to the U.S. Senate that she was “100 percent” certain the future judge had tried to rape her at a teen drinking party decades before.
The Republican majority in the Senate ultimately chose to believe Kavanaugh’s angry denials. A week ago, Trump had mocked Ford. On Saturday, he criticized Democrats for delaying the appointment and challenging Kavanugh’s version of events.
“He’s, like, a perfect person. … The finest legal mind, one of the finest human beings,” Trump said. “That extra week was a great thing because it showed no corroboration (of Ford’s account). … His family … what they had to take was disgraceful.”
KANSAS CITY (AP) — Federal officials say a 52-year-old Kansas City fire captain has been charged with illegally selling several firearms to people he allegedly knew were felons.
Prosecutors say James Samuels sold guns to people who told him they were going to use them to shoot people.
Samuels allegedly bought 77 firearms in the last several years and gave some of them to a co-conspirator, who then reported them stolen.
The charges were filed under seal Monday and made public Friday after Samuels was arrested and appeared in court.
Court records indicate the charges stem from the Sept. 5 sale of an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to a confidential informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Samuels is in custody pending an Oct. 11 court appearance.
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. – The following is a listing of general highway maintenance and construction work in the Northwest Missouri region planned for the week of Oct. 8 – 14 from the Missouri Department of Transportation.
In addition to the work listed below, there may be other road work conducted throughout the region. Many of these will be moving operations and could include lane closures with delays. All scheduled maintenance and construction projects are subject to change.
MoDOT reminds the public to stay alert, watch for road work, buckle up, slow down, and drive with extreme caution through work zones and in changing weather conditions.
For more information about a project, please contact MoDOT at 1-888-ASK-MoDOT (888-275-6636) or visit modot.org/northwest. You can also follow MoDOT’s Northwest Missouri District on Twitter @ModotNorthwest and on Facebook.
Atchison County
U.S. Route 59 – Pothole patching and shoulder work, Oct. 9 – 12
Interstate 29 – Resurfacing project from the Iowa state line to Route 111, Oct. 9 – 13
Buchanan County
I-229– Resurfacing project from 22nd Street to the I-29 ramps, Oct. 9 – 12
U.S. Route 169 (Belt Highway) – Pedestrian crossing improvement project at Faraon Street and U.S. Route 36, Oct. 9 – 12
Caldwell County
U.S. Route 36 – Shoulder work from just east of the DeKalb County line to Route 33 (DeKalb County), Oct. 9 – 12
U.S. Route 36 – Core drilling from the Livingston County line to Route 13, Oct. 10
Carroll County
Route D – Railroad maintenance at the Marceline Sub Railroad crossing in Norborne, Oct. 9, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Route 10 – Resurfacing project from Route FF to Business U.S. Route 65 near Carrollton, Oct. 10 – 12
Clinton County
U.S. Route 169 – Sealing rumble strips from the city limits of Trimble to the Buchanan County line, Oct. 9. A pilot car will direct traffic through the work zone.
I-35 – Pavement repair southbound from mile marker 51 near Cameron to mile marker 48 near Route HH, Oct. 9 – 11. This project will include overnight lane closures and a 12-foot width restriction.
Daviess County
Route J – CLOSED for a culvert replacement from 4th St in Altamont to Titan Road, Oct. 9, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Route 190 – Shoulder work in the southbound lane at Otter Road, Oct. 9 – 11
Route 6 – Centerline and shoulder work from Route P to I-35, Oct. 9 – 12
Route J – CLOSED for culvert replacements from Titan Road to Route D, Oct. 10 and Oct. 12, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
DeKalb County
U.S. Route 169 – Shoulder work just north of Route 31/E, Oct. 9
Gentry County
Route Z – Pothole patching, Oct. 10 – 12
Grundy County
Route W – Pothole patching from Route F to Route A (Livingston County), Oct. 9
Route 6 – Shoulder work from Route 146 to Route WW, Oct. 9
Harrison County
I-35 – Resurfacing project from the Iowa state line to Route N at Eagleville, Oct. 9 – 12. This includes a 14-foot width restriction.
Linn County
U.S. Route 36 – Pothole patching from Meadville to the Macon County line, Oct. 9 – 10
Route 11 – CLOSED for a culvert replacement from Kayak Road to Jewel Road, Oct. 10, 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Route 11 – CLOSED for a culvert replacement from Kale Road to Knoll Road, Oct. 12, 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Mercer County
U.S. Route 136 – Pothole patching, Oct. 9 – 12
Nodaway County
U.S. Route 71 – Milling northbound from 300th Street to 282nd Street, Oct. 9 – 10
Route E – CLOSED for a culvert replacement from 220th Street to 230th Street, Oct. 9, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Route E – CLOSED for a culvert replacement from 230th Street to 240th Street, Oct. 10, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
U.S. Route 136 – Milling from Route E to Liberty Road, Oct. 12
Putnam County
U.S. Route 136 – CLOSED for a bridge replacement project at the West Locust Creek Bridge. The road will be closed through October. A signed detour is in place.
U.S. Route 136 – CLOSED for a bridge replacement project at the Elm Branch Bridge. The road will be closed through October. A signed detour is in place.
Route 139 – Resurfacing project from the Iowa state line to Route 6 (Sullivan County), Oct. 1 – 6. This includes a 10-foot width restriction.
Sullivan County
Route 5 – Pothole patching from the Linn County line to Route M, Oct. 9 – 12
Route 139 – Resurfacing project from the Iowa state line (Putnam County) to Route 6, Oct. 9 – 12. This includes a 10-foot width restriction.
Worth County
Route YY – CLOSED at the Middle Fork of the Grand River after a regularly scheduled inspection revealed critical deterioration to the structure. At a minimum, the bridge will remain closed through November. The closure could be extended if further assessment warrants.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — A 41-year-old woman has been charged with stealing money from the PTA at an Overland Park Elementary School.
Ridgway -photo Johnson County
Kelli Angela Ridgway was booked into the Johnson County Jail Thursday on a charge of felony theft. She was released later after posting bond.
The charges in Johnson County District Court allege that Ridgway stole between $1,500 and $25,000 in November 2016 from the PTA at John Diemer Elementary School.
No attorney for Ridgway is listed in court records. Her initial court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 16.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missourians wanting to vote in the Nov. 6 election must be registered by Wednesday.
Residents must submit a completed voter registration application to local election authorities by 5 p.m. on Oct. 10. The applications may be submitted in person or by mail.
Registration also may be done online through the Missouri Secretary of State’s website. Other places to register include at a driver’s license office when applying for or renewing a driver’s license, a library or any state agency where an applicant is obtaining a service.
Applicants are required to present a form of personal identification, such as a driver’s license.
