Author: KMIZ

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Columbia man pleaded guilty to felonies in a case surrounding a 2023 overdose death.

Chase Rieves pleaded guilty on Monday to first-degree involuntary manslaughter, delivery of a controlled substance and two counts of drug possession. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was previously charged with second-degree murder.

He was one of two people accused in the May 2, 2023, death caused by a fentanyl overdose.

Derek Miltimore pleaded guilty to second-degree drug trafficking, two counts of drug possession and one count of unlawful use of a weapon and was ordered to shock jail time and to complete a drug program.

Police found messages about a drug deal involving Percocet painkillers on the victim’s cellphone and traced them back to Miltimore and Rieves, according to court documents in previous reporting. Detectives searched a business on July 10, 2023, in connection with the investigation.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Columbia man was charged Monday with abandoning a corpse after allegedly leaving his roommate’s body in an apartment for what police say could have been weeks.

Ira C. Baldwin was issued a summons for the Class E felony and released, according to online court records. An initial hearing is set for June.

Police went to Baldwin’s apartment at 2012 W. Ash St. on a check welfare call on March 24 and found his roommate’s body severely decomposed, according to a probable cause statement. Baldwin’s roommate had apparently died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the statement says.

The victim’s death was estimated at 10 days to three weeks prior.

Baldwin allegedly told police he had last seen his roommate in late January. He said he was scared to go into the room and felt “relief” when police came to the door, according to the statement.

Baldwin also told police that he and his roommate had lived together for four years, the statement says.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice was jailed in Texas on Tuesday after violating the terms of his probation.

Rice was booked into the Dallas County Jail just after noon local time Tuesday, according to online jail records.

An order from a Dallas County judge says Rice is to serve 30 days in jail after violating his probation by testing positive for THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. He is set to be released June 16.

Rice pleaded guilty to two third-degree felonies in a 2024 crash — collision involving serious bodily injury and racing on a highway causing bodily injury — and was sentenced to five years of probation.

Rice grew up in Texas and played college football there. The Chiefs selected him in the 2023 NFL draft.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A bench trial has been scheduled for late next month in Gary Pinkel’s attempt to keep his driver’s license.

The former Mizzou football head coach filed a lawsuit last year to keep his license after he was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Pinkel allegedly refused to take a breath test at the scene. Criminal charges have not appeared on Casenet.

A bench trial is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday, June 29 at the Camden County Courthouse, according to court filings.

The petition in the lawsuit alleges that Pinkel was “not legally arrested or stopped” and that the trooper did “not have reasonable grounds to believe that Petitioner was driving a motor vehicle while in an intoxicated” and that Pinkel refused the test under Missouri’s Implied Consent law, previous reporting shows.

Pinkel was MU’s head coach from 2001-15.  Pinkel previously pleaded guilty to misdemeanor DWI in 2011 in Boone County. He was sentenced to two years of probation and completed the sentence.

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Marie Moyer

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Boone County Sheriff Dwayne Carey argued for his proposed 3/8-cent sales tax increase to be added to the ballot during a Boone County Commission meeting Monday.

If approved by the commission, Boone County residents would be able to vote on the measure during the August election.

Boone County Auditor Kyle Rieman estimated that, based on current 1/8-cent collections from 2025, the tax increase would generate at least $17 million annually. The funds collected would be used to build a new Boone County Jail.

According to prior reporting, it cost over $2.5 million in 2025 to house inmates. It previously cost around $499,000 for housing in 2022.

Carey told commissioners Tuesday that his office is looking to accommodate around 570 beds. The facility would be broken up into three sections: 420 beds for male inmates, 88 beds for female inmates, 50 single-unit beds for inmates certified by the Department of Mental Health, 10 single-unit beds for medical rooms and 10 single-unit beds and a recreation area for juvenile inmates. Carey said the jail will be able to be expanded in the future, with plans to fully maintain operations during construction.

The county’s website says the jail has a maximum occupancy of 246 inmates; however, it is currently housing 201 inmates due to housing constraints. Four juvenile inmates and 25 inmates waiting to be housed by the Department of Mental Health are required to be either separated from the general population or in single cells, which Carey reports the current jail was not built for.

“They eat up two-man cells, you lose 25 beds right away with those 25,” Carey said. “Then our female population, from when I started in ’89, has just blown up.”

Carey adds that funding for mental health hasn’t been given to the county.

“Funding was supposed to be held for the state and federal government, still haven’t seen it,” Carey said.

Boone County is paying to house about 180 inmates outside of the county. According to prior reporting, the cost to house out-of-county detainees from January to March this year was around $1.12 million. Carey said Tuesday that due process is key, with inmates spread across Mid-Missouri often slowing down court progress or using up department resources for transports.

“When you think about it, we’re housing 12, soon to be 13 different counties, let’s say a public defender has a caseload,” Carey said. “They have to go down to Greene County to see a client, that’s going to be an all-day trip.”

Carey said he has spoken with sheriffs in Jackson and Jefferson County who have reported that they are also overcrowded.

“At some point, am I going to have to start talking to people in Iowa or Illinois? Because we’re going to end up filling everybody up in Missouri,” Carey said.

Several residents were in the audience, with many opposing the measure in favor of funding more preventative resources in the county.

“We must have a reckoning about the work of prevention by providing basic needs and a number of community members being detained as an eventual result of poverty and instability,” the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon told commissioners.

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Haley Swaino

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

This coming winter may be the last time the Jefferson City Room at the Inn homeless shelter operates at the First Baptist Church on Capitol Avenue.

JCRATI is an emergency, overnight homeless shelter that operates during the winter months. But Housing the Community Jefferson City, JCRATI’s parent organization, could soon be housing the city’s homeless at a new headquarters.

After more than two years of searching for a larger location, the organization announced at a news conference Tuesday morning that it has signed an option to buy property at 107 Adams St. and filed a zoning application for the building.

Scott Johnston, president of the board of directors for Housing the Community Jefferson City, said the 40-year-old building is not vacant, but it is not fully used. The owner mainly uses it as a storage and office space.

“The zoning application is asking the city for approval to renovate the building into both a resource center for the community and to move Room at the Inn into the building,” Johnston said. “We’re hoping that this is really going to be an impact on the community. Our whole purpose is to improve Jefferson City as a place to live and do business.”

Contingent on the city council approving the application late summer, Johnston said the new location would open its doors in December 2027.

“The building on Adams Street is intended to meet a need that we’ve been talking about for years, and that is homeless folks hanging out in the downtown area,” Johnston said.

The tentative location is a block from the current JCRATI location, and Johnston said it would allow for more guests to be welcomed in — a priority of the Jefferson City Task Force on Homelessness.

“The mayor’s task force recently concluded that that was the No. 1 recommendation. The No. 1 priority is to get a coordinated, centralized access point for hooking folks up with services and to take care of their daily basic needs,” Johnston said.

Besides having 30 available beds compared to JCRATI’s current 20, the resource center will have showers, bathrooms, recreational space, snacks and drinks.

The group hopes the expansion will do more than offer shelter from rough weather conditions.

“Most importantly, the resource center will provide an opportunity for folks to get hooked up with the services that they need in order to become more independent,” Johnston said.

The vision is to have the second floor be an overnight shelter, and the first be filled with recreational and office spaces that local resources operate out of. JCRATI hopes that will encourage people to stay after the overnight hour to get any help they may need.

“We don’t have to turn them away at 7 a.m.,” volunteer Carolyn Saucier said. “They can transition to a different space downstairs and maybe work with some people. So the possibilities of this new place are so immense.”

Johnston said the main focus of the resource center will be to find people employment and housing. He said the goal is not to create new resources, but to work with existing ones in the community and bring them to those at the center.

The new building would also better house a growing number of volunteers. Johnston said there are more than 200 volunteers with JCRATI.

The hope is that the Jefferson City community will rally behind the plan to move and expand. Johnston said he believes people will, as it’s been a growing, community-driven mission for many years.

“About six years ago, we just didn’t want people to freeze to death,” Johnston said. “So we worked with Catholic Charities to open Room at the Inn, and it had 15 beds at that time. And we were full almost all the time.”

Carolyn Saucier said conversations began long before JCRATI opened five years ago.

“I’ve been involved in the homelessness project since we started in the conversations over at Catholic Charities about 10 years ago. We simply met and we called ourselves a task force. And how can we address the issues of homelessness in our community?” Saucier said.

About three years ago, Johnston said, First Baptist Church at 301 E Capitol Ave. opened its doors to house JCRATI.

But after a few years, expansion is again needed.

“In December, it was not quite full, but then we were turning away people in January and February. So we’re very hopeful that the expanded beds for Room at the Inn has a real impact on the unhoused people and Jeff City,” Johnston said.

But there’s more than just city council approval standing between the nonprofit’s dream on Adams Street becoming a reality.

“If the zoning is approved, the real work begins for us. If the zoning approves, we’ll need to begin fundraising, renovating that building will take a significant investment and time to convert it into a community resource center and to make it suitable for Room at the Inn,” Johnston said.

The new location would tentatively be renamed the HCJC Community Resource Center and Shelter.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Columbia man was charged Tuesday with dumping a body enclosed in a trash bin into Perche Creek in Boone County over the weekend.

Capt. Brian Leer with the Boone County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the victim was a woman.

Andrew B. Acton, 53, was arrested Monday after a surveillance photo showed his Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck with a trash bin in the bed entering Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area on May 11, according to a probable cause statement. A boater found the bin in the Perche Creek at the Providence Landing on Old Plank Road on Sunday, reporting a smell of decomposition, the statement says.

The remains of an adult were found inside, investigators say.

Prosecutors charged Acton with abandoning a corpse and evidence tampering.

Acton was pulled over and arrested Monday night, and told investigators that he could not remember anything about May 11 except for driving around all day. He did not deny dumping the trash bin, the statement says.

The victim has not been publicly identified, and the statement did not hint at Acton’s alleged motive.

Acton is expected to appear by video for his first hearing on Wednesday afternoon.

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Allegiant Airlines announced on Tuesday that it will be launching a new route from Columbia Regional Airport.

The airline said in a release that flights will start on Nov. 19 from Columbia to St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport.

This is the third new route Allegiant is launching from Columbia in 2026. Flights to Orlando and Destin-Fort Walton Beach will start this summer.

The Columbia City Council approved an airport lease agreement between the Columbia Regional Airport and Allegiant Airlines for an annual rate of $15 per square foot on May 4.

This agreement includes 814.5 square feet for a ticket counter and an office for the airline. It also inlcuded shared use of the gate area and baggage claim.

The council also approved roughly $13.1 million in projects around the airport in April. This includes renovations to its northern parking lot and construction of a fourth terminal boarding bridge.

American Airlines is starting another route in June from Columbia to Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Matthew Sanders

EDITOR’S NOTE: The amount of the proposed tax hasbeen corrected.

It’s the season of sales taxes in Missouri, where local governments around the state are facing revenue problems and questions about future funding.

Measures are now being considered for the August and November ballots. Boone County is considering a 3/8-cent sales tax to help pay for a new jail, as the sheriff says the county is paying millions every year to house the inmate overflow in other counties.

A public hearing is set for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Would you support a new tax to build a jail? Let us know by voting in the poll.

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ABC 17 News Team

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A 12-year-old Latham boy drowned Monday afternoon in Moniteau County, two miles down from the 67000 block of Hazel Dell Road, according to a report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

The report says a 12-year-old Latham boy and a 15-year-old Latham boy were attempting to cross a low-water crossing in a tractor but were swept off by swift water.

The 15-year-old was able to self-rescue, but the 12-year-old was swept downstream and found deceased. The 12-year-old was pronounced dead at 8:10 p.m. by the Moniteau County Coroner.

This is Troop F’s fourth drowning of 2026 and second in May.

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