Author: KMIZ

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Randolph County received a “poor” rating in an audit by the state auditor’s office after the review turned up “numerous mistakes” made by the county clerk’s office.

The auditor’s office announced on Thursday that the clerk failed to comply with state law, which will require the Higbee Fire Protection District to put a bond issue up to voters for a third time.

The clerk made “made numerous errors when reporting the assessed valuation of each taxing jurisdiction, and may have caused the county to collect excessive property taxes,” a press release says.

When the Higbee Fire Protection District tried to register the bonds with the auditor’s office, the office determined the August and November elections did not comply with state law because sample ballots were not published.

Higbee FPD asked for a bond measure twice last year, which was approved by voters both times. An August release from HFPD said a clerical error led to the wrong amount being put on the August ballot and required a new vote.

“This audit has revealed serious failures within the County Clerk’s Office that need to be addressed immediately. A lack of understanding of how to carry out the duties of the office has caused significant errors in assessed valuation totals for every taxing district in the county, and will force taxpayers to pay for a third election to approve bonds to be issued for the Higbee Fire Protection District due to failing to properly notify voters. These kinds of mistakes simply can’t happen, but because they did, our report gives the office a set of recommendations that, if followed, will prevent such egregious errors from happening again,” Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick said in the release.

The audit also found that County Clerk Terri Maddox reported incorrect assessed valuation totals for the 2024 tax year.

Overpayment of sheriff

The audit also states that the County Commission authorized mid-term salary increases to the sheriff totaling $42,804, in violation of constitutional provisions and state law. Aaron Wilson was the sheriff in 2024.

The audit says the county clerk said the commission “believed it was required to increase the Sheriff’s salary due to the change in state law. The County Commission did not seek a written legal opinion on this matter; however, the County Clerk did discuss the issue with an attorney and the issue of a mid-term salary increase was mentioned.”

It states that the sheriff received $22,343 in excess compensation.

“Because the salary increase was greater than $10,000, the amount should have been paid in 5 annual installments. However, the County Commission increased the rate of pay for the sheriff 6 times between March 2022 and July 2024 as detailed in Appendix A,” the audit states.

Wilson denies he was overpaid.

“SB510 repealed the mid-term pay stating it was constitutional and allowed. The county commission did everything correct per statute,” Wilson wrote in a text message to an ABC 17 News reporter.

Other issues found through the audit included the public administrator not filing 10 settlements within a timely manner, the commission not complying with Sunshine Law by not adequately documenting closed meetings and that the county is without a records management policy with electronic compliance with the Missouri Secretary of State Records Services Division.

Randolph County auditDownload

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Mitchell Kaminski

Editor’s note: Information about the flights was updated after a source error was corrected.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

United Airlines will start flying again out of Columbia in the fall after nearly four years without local flights.

City officials in a Thursday news conference announced the resumption of United service on Sept. 25 at Columbia Regional Airport. The carrier will schedule two flights daily to Chicago O’Hare and once daily to Denver. 

Reservations for flights became available at 5 p.m. Thursday on United’s website.. Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe said during Thursday’s press conference that Denver was one of the city’s most underserved business markets. 

“We’ve heard back from the business community that they have multiple, whether it is a conference or they have another satellite office in the Denver area, but also just that additional going west, an additional opportunity to go west will connect them to even more destinations that help them recruit and retain their business interests here,” Buffaloe told ABC 17 News. 

A 2025 community summit report from the city found Denver was the top choice for a new direct flight from Columbia Regional Airport. Denver received 28 of the 89 total votes, leading a list of destinations that included New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Orlando, Houston and Washington, D.C.

New York came in second with 14 votes.

University of Missouri System President Mun Choi also spoke at the news conference, highlighting the 3,000-4,000 MU students who live in the Chicago area. The flights will also expand the university’s reach in Denver, he said.

“We also have a very big market of potential students in the Denver region. So this is another way for us to expand to the reach of Columbia University, Missouri, to those markets,” Choi said during Thursday’s press conference. 

City officials said in November that they had received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to resume flight service to Denver. Those flights were halted amid lagging ridership in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Airport Manager Mike Parks said the city and United have been in conversations during the intervening period.

“We had a great relationship with United while they were here. We’ve continued that relationship, continuing to have a conversation with them about the mid-Missouri need for that service to return to Columbia,” Parks said. 

United will operate a CRJ-550 for the Chicago flights, according to a City of Columbia release.

American Airlines already offers multiple local flights a day to and from Chicago and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Jefferson City man on Thursday was charged in Cole County with having child pornography.

Austin Russell, 27, is being held at the Cole County Jail without bond. A court date has not been scheduled.

The probable cause statement says the Boone County Sheriff’s Office Cyber Crimes Task Force received a tip on Jan. 3 from an online-based reporting system about multiple child porn files being uploaded. The platform was not identified in court documents.

The statement says that law enforcement received information from an internet provide rabout an IP address registered at Russell’s address.

Russell was interviewed on Wednesday at the Jefferson City Police Department and stated the email address associated with the account was his, the statement says. He also allegedly identified images associated with the account, the statement says. He allegedly sent images to other users he communicated with, court documents claim.

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Matthew Sanders

The Pentagon made it official Wednesday — the government has accepted a gift of a Qatari plane meant to replace the aging Air Force One.

President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would accept the Boeing 747 as a gift from the government of Qatar was met with strong opposition, including from some in his own party. Opponents point to security worries, Qatar’s history of backing terrorism and whether Qatar will expect something in return for the gift.

Do you think the government should have accepted Qatar’s offer? Let us know by voting in the poll.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Another man has been charged in a child sex crime case in Morgan County.

Jack Chick, 19, of Eldon, was charged on Wednesday with three counts of patronizing a sexual performance by a child and one count of fourth-degree child molestation. He was detained on May 14, but was released at the scene. A warrant was issued on Wednesday and a $50,000 bond was set.

Last week, Matthew Bell, 24, of Rocky Mount, was charged with four counts of sexually exploiting a minor, five counts of child porn possession and four counts of second-degree sodomy.

He is being held at the Morgan County Jail on a $250,000 bond. He appeared in court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty. A bond appearance hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday, June 3.

Marie Bell, 50, of Rocky Mount, was charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child. She is being held at the Morgan County Jail on a $50,000 bond. She appeared in court on Tuesday and also pleaded not guilty. She has a hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday.

The new probable cause statement alleges that Chick admitted to multiple people — including law enforcement — of participating in a sexual assault of a child with another man and also watched one of the assaults occur. He also allegedly routinely messaged children as young as 13 on the social media application Discord, the statement says.

Court documents in previous reporting say while law enforcement was at the Bell’s residence, Marie Bell allegedly claimed that Matt Bell and a girl were “in a relationship.”

The youth and Matthew Bell allegedly gave conflicting statements about their living situation before Bell admitted to having sex with the child, the statement says. Bell allegedly repeatedly told deputies that it was “consensual.”

Bell also had child porn saved from the youth on his SnapChat account and showed it to law enforcement, the statement says.

Chick also allegedly told law enforcement that he wanted to obtain legal guardianship of the youth to continue more sexual encounters, the statement says.

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Mitchell Kaminski

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Counties across Mid-Missouri are continuing to take steps to ensure their warning systems work reliably during severe weather.

In Boone County, officials are rolling out a new system that aims to make siren use more precise and reduce what they call “siren fatigue” — the overuse of sirens in areas not directly impacted by storms.

“We knew that the system that we have currently in place where we have the zones, sometimes we are sounding sirens that may be kind of outside that catchment area for a possible tornado,” Boone County Presiding Commissioner Kip Kendrick said. “And we know that every time we sound sirens where it could be more of a blue sky situation for that zone, it creates a possibility for siren fatigue.”

Discussions around the upgrade began during the county’s fiscal year 2025 budget planning, according to Kendrick. Boone County Emergency Management Director Chris Kelley and Joint Communications Director Christie Davis first brought the proposal forward.

The county is now using CommanderOne, a Federal Signal software platform that activates sirens only in areas specifically under a National Weather Service tornado warning or a severe thunderstorm warning with a destructive tag, which includes wind speeds of 80 miles per hour or hail 2.75 inches in diameter or greater.

The system allows sirens to be triggered based on the exact warning polygon issued by the NWS, rather than broader countywide zones. Officials said the upgrade was funded through Boone County’s 911 sales tax.

“Just like any emergency management protocol, we have redundancies built into that,” Kendrick said. “So if CommanderOne, for whatever reason, doesn’t automatically trigger those sirens, then we will have backup joint communications team ready to manually sound those alarms. And should they be caught up in calls and unable to, then our emergency management director, as well as communications director, can log into the system and sound the sirens, too.”

The commission earlier this month also approved implementing three new sirens.  A programming issue led to a siren not sounding in June 2024.

Meanwhile, in Cooper County, officials have been upgrading their siren infrastructure over the last few years. The county replaced a siren in Pilot Grove on Tuesday that had failed during a tornado warning due to a power outage.

“The Pilot Grove tornado, that siren did not have battery backup and the electricity went off. About the same time we were receiving the tornado warning from the National Weather Service,” said Larry Oerly, who is the director of the Cooper County Emergency Management Agency. “So, in other words, the wind or the tornado had knocked out the electricity to the siren prior to us setting it off.”

The new sirens installed in Cooper County all feature battery backups and are triggered via radio signal from the county’s 911 center.

“Our policy in Cooper County is that we set all these sirens in the polygon that we get from the National Weather Service,” Oerly said. “They will show the affected areas.”

The county began upgrading sirens in 2022 using grant funding. Since then, new sirens have been installed in Boonville, the Brady Showgrounds and the Fox Hollow subdivision, which had been outside the range of previous sirens. 

The City of Otterville also had it’s siren replaced last year due to “intermittent problems.” Orely says that the Otterville siren also ran on electricity, which presented issues during severe weather. 

“Our policy in Cooper County, they have to be manually triggered from our 911 center. They are all  triggered over radio frequency,” Orely said. “Our policy in Cooper County is that we set all these sirens in the polygon that we get from the National Weather Service when they issue a tornado warning, will have a polygon that will show the affected areas.” 

Officials in both counties stress that sirens are intended to warn people who are outdoors and should not be relied upon as the sole method of receiving severe weather alerts.

“This is one of many ways to receive a warning. Sirens are a mechanical piece of machinery. They can break, they can fail. Always, always have multiple ways of getting weather warnings,” Oerly said. 

Residents are encouraged to use weather radios, mobile apps, and emergency alert systems to stay informed during dangerous weather.

Boone and Cooper County’s efforts reflect a broader push among emergency managers to modernize tornado warning systems and ensure communities are better prepared when seconds count.

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Marie Moyer

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A more than $2.1 million collaborative study between the Columbia City Council, The Loop CID and Great Rivers Engineering to revamp Business Loop 70 is on its way to the US Department of Transportation for approval.

This comes after the Columbia City Council approved several million-dollar infrastructure projects Monday.

The total study cannot exceed $2,623,500, with $500,000 coming from capital improvement program sales tax funds, with the rest being covered by federal funding.

A press release from The Loop says the council approved a $2.13 million contract with Great River Engineering on Monday. The city was initially approved for $2.13 million in federal grant money last year, but funds were frozen on March 10.  

Previous reporting indicates that Business Loop 70 will be studied between Stadium Boulevard and Eastland Circle to find ways to improve safety for motorized and non-motorized users, improving accessible multi-modal operations, providing aesthetics along the corridor and improving economic vitality along the roadway.

Business Loop 70 is maintained by Missouri Department of Transportation.

Great River Engineering will survey the street, collect public input and create engineering plans. Problem areas that will be focused on is stormwater management, bike lanes and adding crosswalks and sidewalks.

“Most exits off of I-70, hit the business loop, and we really want to put our best foot forward there,” Carrie Gartner, of the Business Loop CID, said. “The second thing is, we want to make sure people on the street can get to lunch, or can walk over and get a cup of coffee or can cross the street safely.”

Gartner adds that when the Loop conducted a separate survey of residents, many residents voiced similar concerns.

“As an outside-of-downtown bar, I think a lot of other bars struggle with getting people to just like come in as it’s not a walkable bar, so you can’t be downtown and just go here and there,” Dive Bar front of house manager Jakely Mange said. “I think it’s a great idea, I was like, ‘the loop has been around for so long and the better it can get, why not?'”

Mange added having more accessible transportation options would make the loop more accommodating.

When asked about if adding more sidewalks will increase panhandling from unhoused individuals, Gartner argues that easy and safe walking outweighs potential issues.

“If we’re really looking at people who are homeless, the solution isn’t to remove sidewalks,” Gartner said. “We don’t want to hold back the street because we’re afraid of something happening, we want an attractive and welcoming and easy-to-travel street.”

Once approved by the US Department of Transportation, the Loop CID will host public forums throughout the year and invite residents to come forward with any comments.

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Erika McGuire

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The City of Columbia is working to restore power to damaged equipment at its recycling facility after an EF-1 tornado destroyed the building.

Utilities spokesperson Jason West said demolition is underway and debris removal is going well.

“I believe the process is moving forward at a quicker pace than expected,” West said in an email Wednesday afternoon.

The city hopes to at least get a portion of the recycling program restarted, but West said it depends how much damaged equipment is salvageable.

“The goal is to divert as much material away from the landfill as possible depending on how much of the machinery is usable,” West said.

Once demolition is complete and the city sees how much equipment is saved there may be an opportunity to build a temporary covering for the machinery to help protect it from elements.

On April 20, an EF-1 tornado destroyed the facility off Peabody Road. The destruction caused the city to suspend the collection of curbside recycling materials and drop-off centers. Curbside pickup then resumed at the end of last month, however it is being taken to the landfill.

West said the city made the decision so residents would “maintain the habit” of curbside recycling. Last year the city collected about 11,000 thousands of recycling material, West said.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Jefferson City woman was charged on Wednesday after she was accused of raping a youth.

Estelle Kerns, 35, was charged with first-degree statutory rape of someone younger than 14 years old. She is being held at the Boone County Jail without bond. A hearing was set for Wednesday.

The probable cause statement says that a friend of the victim told the victim’s mother about the assaults. The victim allegedly told law enforcement that they repeatedly told Kerns to stop.

Kerns allegedly admitted to the victim’s mother that the assaults took place over multiple weeks and then blamed the victim, court documents say.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A woman who was charged with murder in a fatal shooting at a Holts Summit apartment complex last month was indicted by a grand jury on Monday.

Heather Smith, 37, of Holts Summit, was charged with second-degree murder, first-degree child endangerment, armed criminal action and three counts of unlawful use of a weapon.

An arraignment is set for 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 27 at the Callaway County Courthouse. She bonded out of jail last month.

Smith is accused of killing Kara Dills, 37. Court documents in previous reporting say the shooting started with an argument between Smith and Dills at Hunter Lane Apartments. The documents cite nine witnesses to the shooting.

Video surveillance allegedly showed Smith threatening witnesses with a pistol before the shooting. One witness allegedly tried to disarm her after she pointed the gun at several people, but was not successful.

Dills allegedly got a gun and pistol-whipped Smith on the forehead, documents say. The gun went off, grazing a man later identified as Thomas Jones, 71, on his head, according to the probable cause statement. After Dills lowered her gun and started to walk away, Smith shot her in the stomach, the statement says. She later died.

Jones was later charged with fourth-degree assault for failure to listen to deputies. He has a hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday, July 18.

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