CALLAWAY COUNTY –A Missouri man died in an accident just before 1p.m. Saturday in Callaway County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2012 Dodge Ram driven by Ross L. Arntzen, 28. New Bloomfield, was eastbound on Route Y just east of County 365.
The Dodge and a westbound 1999 Chevy Silverado driven by Ryan W. Kirk, 23, New Bloomfield, collided head and both vehicles became fully engulfed in flames.
Kirk was pronounced dead at the scene. Arntzen and a passenger Brett L. Arntzen, 7, New Broomfield, were transported to University Hospital in serious condition.
The occupants of the Dodge were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the MSHP. The patrol did not have information on Kirk’s seat belt usage.
KANSAS CITY (AP) – A Kansas City woman has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for her role in a New Year’s Day 2016 shooting that killed a man and left a woman wounded.
The Kansas City Star reports that 20-year-old Destynie Wright was sentenced by a Jackson County judge on Friday.
Wright had been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, tampering with evidence and two counts of armed criminal action after participating in the shooting in south Kansas City that killed Sederick Jones.
Wright’s co-defendant in the case, Ramon Boyd, has yet to stand trial.
Police say used blood evidence to link Wright to the shooting and found text messages to Boyd about Jones saying “come get him now!!!!!”
The Saint Joseph Community Chorus will hold two Christmas performances on Sunday and Monday.
President of the Board of Directors with the Community Chorus Janet Steury said Christmas at the Cathedral will be an event for all ages to get into the holiday season.
“This is going to be such an amazing concert. We have a beautiful selection, very familiar Christmas carols, many of them however are in little bit different arrangements than people are used to hearing and I think that’s going to be something spectacular,” Steury said. “We also have two Christmas carols that everyone in the congregation is going to sing and we’ve added some of the descants and different things that the chorus will be doing. I think it’s just going to be so much fun because everybody loves to sing carols and this is going to be a great opportunity.”
Tickets will be available at the door. The performances will be at 3 p.m. on Sunday and at 7:30 p.m. on Monday at the Cathedral of St. Joseph, 519 North Tenth Street.
Brandon Ellingson sits in the back of a State Highway Patrol boat on the Lake of the Ozarks after being arrested
VERSAILLES, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri state trooper convicted of a misdemeanor for the drowning death of a handcuffed Iowa man has been fired.
The Kansas City Star reports that that a Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman confirmed Anthony Piercy was fired Friday, more than 3 1/2 years after 20-year-old Brandon Ellingson, of Clive, Iowa, drowned in the Lake of the Ozarks.
In September, Piercy was sentenced to 10 days in jail and two years on supervised probation after pleading guilty to negligent operation of a vessel.
Piercy had pulled Ellingson over on the lake in May 2014 for suspicion of operating while intoxicated. Ellingson drowned after being thrown from the boat by a wave while wearing an improperly secured life vest.
Ellingson’s father, Craig Ellingson, says he received an email Friday from Missouri State Highway Patrol Col. Sandra Karsten stating that Piercy was fired after the patrol’s procedural hearing board determined he had violated patrol policies in Brandon Ellingson’s death.
A St. Joseph School District employee has been charged with sodomy.
The school district said it was notified late Friday that 27-year-old Cole Charboneau was arrested and charged for “allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a student.”
According to online court documents, Charboneau is charged with first degree statutory sodomy with a minor, a felony.
According to a statement from School Superintendent Dr. Robert Newhart, the district learned of an accusation against Charboneau on Nov. 17, 2017. The district immediately notified Missouri’s Family Support Division and place Charboneau on paid administrative leave pending further investigation. He has remained on leave.
“District employees, in accordance with our policy on staff/student relations, are expected to maintain courteous and professional relationships with students. All staff members have a responsibility to provide an atmosphere conducive to learning through consistently and fairly applied discipline and the maintenance of physical and emotional boundaries with students,” Newhart said. “Student safety is a primary concern for the district and we are fully cooperating with the St. Joseph Police Department during this investigation.”
Charboneau was jailed on $50,000 bond. A court date is set for December 19.
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) – A Blue Springs, Missouri, man has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping a sheriff’s deputy in Johnson County, Kansas.
The Kansas City Star reports that 25-year-old William Luth will face a recommended sentence of more than 40 years in prison after entering the plea Friday. A second suspect, Brady Newman-Caddell, is due in court Thursday.
The attack happened in October 2016 outside the Johnson County Detention Center in Olathe. The female deputy testified at a preliminary hearing in February that she was on her way to work when a man punched her and forced her into a vehicle, where another man was in the driver’s seat.
The deputy testified she was attacked by both men. Authorities say DNA testing was among the evidence linking the men to the crime.
The annual fruit sale fundraiser by the St. Joseph Host Lions Club is underway.
The sale includes oranges, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Gala apples and Texas grapefruit. The fruit is available by the case or mixed cases.
Jacob Dillon with the Host Lions Club said proceeds from the fundraiser return to the local community.
“Eye research is our big thing… Our proceeds go to scholarships, specifically Missouri Western, for visually impaired and then as well as needy people who can’t afford glasses in the local community,” Dillon said. “Then we also donate to eye research centers owned by the Host Lions Club in Columbia, Missouri, but always… eye research (is) the original mission still going forward today.”
The Host Lions will have their trailer set up on the south side of the East Hills Mall parking lot along Woodbine Road next to the St. Joseph Public Library.
Doors will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. The fundraiser runs through Saturday, December 23.
ST. LOUIS (AP) – Some HIV-positive patients in nearly half the counties in Missouri will lose health insurance coverage next year.
The Department of Health and Senior Services announced that nearly 100 HIV patients in Missouri will no longer have access to a comprehensive health insurance plan effective Jan. 1 as a result of high costs.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the state has begun notifying some HIV-positive patients in more than 50 counties about the changes in coverage. The state helps direct federal funds from the Ryan White program to help those with HIV afford and access health care.
A spokeswoman for the department says more than 2,300 people in Missouri relied on the program for coverage this year.
State officials say patients will still have access to the necessary medications.
WASHINGTON COUNTY — A Missouri man was injured in an accident just after 4p.m. Friday in Washington County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2016 Chevy 2500 driven by Robert O. Phares 41, Potosi, was northbound on Highway 185 at Pleasant Hill Road.
The vehicle crossed the center line and struck the right front corner of a southbound 2002 Dodge Neon driven by Aaron K. Kurtz, 38, Potosi.
Kurtz was pronounced dead at the scene and was transported to Deluce Funeral Home.
Phares was transported to Washington County Memorial Hospital. Both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the MSHP.
Descriptions of an underfunded, under-resourced foster care system short on child placement options sounded familiar to Kansas lawmakers and child welfare advocates at a task force meeting this week.
Rochelle Chronister, former secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, describes the foster care privatization process she oversaw in the 1990s to a task force examining the state child welfare system. MADELINE FOX / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
But the events described this week actually played out 30 years earlier, when a 1989 class-action lawsuit — alleging that the state’s foster care system violated the rights of Kansas children — raised issues that eventually led to the current privatized system.
Rochelle Chronister, former secretary of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (now the Department for Children and Families), said she believes privatization of the foster care system in the late 1990s made sense although it was a tumultuous process.
“I hope none of my colleagues are going to come up here and tell you it was a smooth transition, because it wasn’t,” Chronister said. “Oh my, any day I wasn’t on the front page of the Topeka Capital-Journal was a good day.”
Lawmakers and advocates are revisiting that privatization decision, and other changes to Kansas foster care in the last 20 years, as part of a multiyear review of child welfare that the Legislature approved earlier this year.
Tuesday’s meeting offered a grim view for task force members, as former SRS administrators and others described the problems they hoped to fix with privatization: understaffing and inadequate funding, the same issues that have been highlighted in recent cases when children died in foster care or ran away from foster care placements.
“It’s the same story over and over and over,” said Dave Ranney, a court-appointed special advocate for children in the foster care system who was a reporter for the Wichita Eagle and the Lawrence Journal-World during the privatization process.
However, former SRS commissioner Teresa Markowitz said she has noticed an improvement in the high percentage of children placed with family members now.
“Here’s the good news for people who are only interested in money, and the good news for people that are only interested in good outcomes for kids,” said Markowitz, now vice president of the Center for Systems Innovation at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national child welfare organization. “Keeping a kid with a family member is most cost-effective, and it has the best outcomes.”
Teresa Markowitz, former SRS commissioner, told task force members she was surprised to learn that Kansas families receive only $3 per day while caring for a relative’s child. CREDIT MADELINE FOX / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
Markowitz said placements with relatives are generally far less disruptive for children, who don’t have to adjust to unfamiliar adults and are often able to stay within the same community.
So far this fiscal year, nearly 33 percent of Kansas children in out-of-home care have been placed with relatives.
Markowitz was shocked to learn, though, that relatives taking care of Kansas foster kids were paid only $3 per day on average. Licensed foster care parents who care for non-relative children are eligible for a higher reimbursement rate of close to $20 per day for kids who don’t require specialized care.
Relatives who do go through formal licensing, including a 10-week, 30-hour training course, are eligible for the higher reimbursement rate. But Markowitz said paying relatives more, even without the formal training, would still save the state money down the road, as less-disruptive placements with relatives help prevent children from needing more social services later in life.
Placements with family members and non-relatives such as teachers, coaches or other adults who have a relationship with the child are among the fixes the task force has examined during its review of the child welfare system.
The task force will submit final recommendations to the Legislature in January 2019.
