The City of St. Joseph Health Dept. said under the terms of its 2016 contract it will be able to serve more than 2,000 people each month who meet the revised WIC income guidelines.

The Missouri Women, Infant & Children (WIC) program has announced revised income guidelines which went into effect at the beginning of April. The health dept. said the income amounts have gone up slightly.

Under the terms of the contract for the federal fiscal year 2016 the St. Joseph Health Dept. said it will be able to serve 2,148 persons eligible for WIC every month.

The WIC program provides breastfeeding support, nutrition education, referrals to appropriate health agencies, and nutritious foods for eligible applicants. WIC serves pregnant women, nonbreastfeeding postpartum women (up to 6 months after delivery), breastfeeding women (up to 1 year after delivery as long as they are mostly or fully breastfeeding), infants from birth to 1 year of age, and children up to their 5th birthday.

Applicants may participate in the program if they meet the following criteria: must live, work, or receive medical care in the State of Missouri; must meet a nutritional risk factor(s) as determined by the Missouri WIC program; and must meet current income guidelines.

For more information contract the City of St. Joseph WIC Program at (816) 271-4723

A Savannah man is accused of molesting a 13-year-old girl.

Jeremy Gaukel, 32 was charged Tuesday with a felony for first-degree child molestation in Andrew County.

According to a probable cause statement a 13-year-old girl said during a forensic interview that Gaukel sexually assaulted her with his fingers on April 2nd.

“The victim also stated that she had received several text messages from Gaukel that showed him asking her sexually charged questions and stated that he wanted to impregnate her,” said Officer Matthew McMillen with the Savannah Police Dept. “The victims mother showed me the text messages.”

Gaukel is being held in the Andrew County Jail on $100,000 bail.  As of Wednesday afternoon online court documents did not list a court date.

A power outage in north St Joseph appears to have been fixed. Radio listeners tell us the stoplights were not working at the Belt and Gene Field Road. Police officers were dispatched to help direct traffic.

There were hundreds of outages north of there, according to the KCP&L outage map. An area from North 22nd Street to the Belt, north and south of Ashland appeared to have lost power. The utility suggested 1,151 customers were without electricity at 9:41 a.m. Within about ten minutes that number had dropped to just 21 customers.

This may be related to a traffic problem in the area. Officers were dispatched to block traffic at Ashland and Beck Road, as well as at Beck and Chambers.

A retail farm and ranch supply chain based in Moberly, with outlets in St Joseph and Maryville, plans to close its facility in Falls City, Nebraska.

Orscheln Farm And Home is working under what was called a 60-day plan.  Key holder Myranda Murphy tells us they’re packing some items to move to other stores, and cutting prices on many perishable and discontinued items.

“We’re not really liquidating,” Murphy says, “but some of our products are now really, really cheap.”

Ms Murphy says chicken feed, dog food and cat food are marked 10% off, along with candy and other food items.  They’re selling plants and chickens for 25% off, and some clothing items have been marked down by up to 50%.

The company is offering employment at other Orscheln stores to the Falls City staff of five.

Murphy says they could close sooner or later than the 60 days she mentioned, depending on how soon they’re able to sell, pack or ship their inventory.

A Buchanan County Circuit Court judge this week threw out a jury’s guilty verdict and discharged a St. Joe woman accused in the death of her baby daughter. The move surprised observers and officers of the court alike, including Prosecuting Attorney Dwight Scroggins.

“We were surprised at the finding by the court,” Scroggins said. “I’m sure that the court did that because the judge in good conscience determined that that’s what he needed to do.”

“We’re not arguing with that. We were surprised.”

Jaspera Rainey is a free woman now, after Judge Patrick Robb set aside a jury’s guilty verdict to a lesser, misdemeanor offense, during a hearing at which the woman was scheduled to be sentenced.  She had been charged with the Class-A felony offense of Child Abuse Resulting In Death.  The mother’s boyfriend is serving 18 years for his conviction in the case.

Prosecutor Scroggins says the timing of the ruling was surprising. Judge Robb had previously rejected two motions to dismiss the case.

“If it’s going to happen, and that’s a rarety that it happens at all, but if it does, it normally happens at either the close of the state’s case, or, more commonly, at the close of all of the evidence in the case, after both the state and defense have finished presenting evidence,” Scroggins said.

“The court has then seen everything that there is, and nothing after that changes, nothing evidentiarly, there’s no more or less evidence. It is completed at that point in time. The court generally, if it rules then that a motion for acquittal should not be granted, that a motion to find the person not guilty should not be granted at that stage, then it’s very unusual that it gets done at the next level.

The child, 23-month-old Jaliya Blackmon, died in August of 2014 after suffering dozens of injuries. The judge ruled that there was no clear way to determine when the fatal injuries occurred, and nothing in the evidence to show that the defendant lied about it, as asserted by the prosecutor Kate Schaefer.

“She made, I thought, an exceptionally good argument during the course of the hearing on the motion, and the judge just disagreed with her arguments,” Mr Scroggins said, “and that’s the system, and we live with the outcome.”

Court records in the case, including the paper files and the records on Case.net, have been blocked from public access.  Scroggins says this happens any time a defendant is found not guilty, in an effort to prevent the unproved charges from following a person around for the rest of their life.

24-year-old Jacey Grom made her first appearance Tuesday in Buchanan County court in connection with the death of Corbin Watts.

Grom was charged Friday in Buchanan County with a felony for first-degree involuntary manslaughter. Court documents accuse Grom of driving while under the influence of alcohol causing the death of Watts by striking him with a vehicle driving in excess of the speed limit on I-229 earlier this month.

Online court documents said Tuesday, during an arraignment the court overruled Grom’s oral motion to set bail. She remains behind bars without bond.

A Preliminary hearing has been set for May 3.