Author: KMIZ

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

At least one tornado was confirmed by the National Weather Service to have touched down in Randolph and Monroe counties on Monday.

Information on Tuesday from the NWS shows that the speeds varied from an EF-0 to an EF-1.

Damage was reported in both counties on Monday morning after severe storms went through the area, which included residences and downed trees and powerlines, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

The Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives’ outage map is still showing a significant number of people without power in Randolph County.

There are 539 Howard Electric customers without power on Tuesday afternoon. Another 89 Ameren customers were reportedly without power on Tuesday afternoon, according to Ameren’s outage map.

Check back for updates.

Click here to follow the original article.

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A man who was originally charged with first-degree murder in a 2024 shooting pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery on Tuesday.

Fernando Hutchinson, 21, of Osage Beach, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was previously charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. The case was originally tried in Camden County, but was moved to Laclede County in 2025.

Previous reporting claims that Hutchinson was accused in the death of David Davis, who died from injuries he suffered after getting shot.

Investigators claimed Hutchinson shot Davis while Hutchinson was trying to steal marijuana, though court documents did not say Davis had drugs. A gun was later found in Hutchinson’s apartment, according to previous reporting.

Click here to follow the original article.

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A juvenile had non-life-threatening injuries after they were accidentally shot Saturday in Randolph County, according to a Tuesday press release from the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office.

The release says deputies were called to Moberly Regional Medical Center “in reference to a juvenile who sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen.” The youth was then brought to University Hospital to be treated, the release says.

The release says the youth was in a vehicle with two other juveniles when they were accidentally shot outside of Moberly city limits.

Click here to follow the original article.

Marie Moyer

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A local nonprofit is looking to transform Columbia’s Third Ward and the “Clark Lane Corridor” with the Beacon of Light Community Center.

United Community Builders announced the grand opening of the building on Tuesday morning during a ribbon-cutting.

“When I came here in 1998, this was the premier area for college students and for single-family homes to be here,” said Damian Dean, who is the executive director of Unite Community Builders. “This location of our facility is in a resource desert, and we’re trying to recapture the glory of what it was, but also build for the future generations.”

The 22,500-square-foot center is located at the corner of Sylvan Lane and Towne Drive and features a gymnasium with an indoor basketball court, conference room, industrial kitchen, outdoor playground and several offices and classrooms for UCB Academy Students and staff.

Groups will be able to rent out spaces and a plan for UCB-hosted events. UCB also currently runs a “Transformation” program that helps low-income and minority adults with career education. This includes classes on resume building, career planning and workplace training.

“We will have some open gym to some extent, but everything is going to be geared towards being strategic and intentional,” Dean said. “We’re helping young people and families get the things that they need.”

According to UCB, the two schools in the area, Blue Ridge Elementary and Alpha Hart Lewis Elementary, rank in the bottom 50% of all Missouri schools, with a large majority of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.

Donors, ARPA funds and state and county governments helped fund the project. According to prior reporting, UCB raised at least $7.9 million for the center. Boone County and City of Columbia Documents report both governments gave the project $750,000 in ARPA funds.

UCB later confirmed with ABC 17 News that the project cost around $8 million to complete.

According to City of Columbia documents, the total costs for HVAC and elevator construction came to around $3.87 million.

“This is huge, people can see and dream and think about raising our community enrichment with property value,” D’Markus Thomas-Brown, City of Columbia’s administrator of the Office of Violence Prevention said.

“It was it was a blessing for us at the local level that the Congress, federal government and trusted local leaders to make decisions like the one” Boone County Commissioner Kip Kendrick said. “It’s a big lift for local governments but it also, local governments, I think, are sometimes well positioned to know what projects have been discussed for years, what projects are probably ready to move forward and have momentum behind them and this is this is a wonderful example.

Northeast Columbia residents John and Elvira Maxwell called the center a ‘miracle.’

“Many of our young people have gone astray, no guidance in their home, no male figure and they hit the streets. So United Community is doing an awesome job,” Elvira Maxwell said. “When we work together, we see what can happen.”

Click here to follow the original article.

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

More than 1,100 electricity customers in Camden County were without power after a storm with hail went through the Lake of the Ozarks area on Tuesday afternoon.

The Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives’ map shows 1,056 Co-Mo Electric Cooperative customers without power and another 89 Laclede Electric customers had no electricity. Most of the residents without power appeared to be near Sunrise Beach, according to Co-Mo Electric’s outage map.

Co-Mo Electric spokesman Patrick Wood told ABC 17 News in an email that customers in Morgan County were also without power and that crews have been dispatched to fix the outage. That outage appeared to be resolved around 2:40 p.m.

This comes after multiple days of storms. Up in Randolph County, there’s still nearly 800 electric customers without power, with 251 being Ameren customers and 539 coming from Howard Electric Cooperative.

The City of Glasgow in Howard County lost power on Monday and had told its residents on social media that power could be restored as soon as Wednesday or Thursday.

Click here to follow the original article.

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The now-former Columbia parking manager who was accused of stealing money from parking meters earlier this month was accused of a similar crime more than a decade ago.

James Faup, 38, of Columbia, was arrested on April 2 on suspicion of felony stealing and misdemeanor stealing, according to a Columbia Police Department press release that was issued the same day. Faup bonded out of jail and charges have not yet been filed on Casenet.

CPD wrote in its release that it was tipped off by someone who claimed they saw someone in a Public Works uniform “who was exchanging a large amount of coins at a local business.” Faup allegedly took coins from parking meters and exchanged them for paper money “for personal use,” the release says.

Faup had pleaded guilty on July 10, 2013, in Boone County to misdemeanor stealing. Court records show he was originally charged in that case with a felony. He was sentenced to two years of unsupervised probation and 40 hours of community service.

The probable cause statement in that case says the University of Missouri Parking and Transportation Services Office saw a $500 shortage on a bank deposit. The statement describes Faup at the time being an assistant to the main collector of funds.

“The main collector left the office following completion of collection change from the parking meters around campus and Faup was left to count the funds and secure them for collection by Brinks on 12-11-2012,” the statement says.

A second $191 shortage was discovered on Jan. 17, 2013, “from change machines located in Hitt Street Garage and Virginia Avenue Garage,” court documents say. The “main collector” and Faup were the only people with access to those machines, court documents allege.

Faup allegedly admitted to University of Missouri police on Jan. 23, 2013, that he took $500 in quarters and deposited it into a checking account. He also allegedly admitted to cashing out the other $191 at a CoinStar machine.

The City of Columbia had confirmed to ABC 17 News on April 3, 2026, that Faup was employed by the city from Feb. 20, 2013-April 2, 2026.

ABC 17 News has reached out to the Boone County Prosecutor’s Office and the City of Columbia on Tuesday.

City Finance Director Matt Lue told ABC 17 News on Tuesday that the city is conducting an audit of the parking fund. The city expects it to be complete by the end of May.

“We weren’t factoring in theft into the budget,” said Randy Minchew with the city’s Finance Advisory and Audit Committee. “Now we don’t really know if the norm is the norm because we don’t know how much theft was involved.”

Minchew said with Faup’s 13-year history at the city, it may be hard to figure out how much was really stolen.

“It’s hard to monitor how much money should be there because there’s different amounts of people parking, paying and parking every month,” Minchew said.

Minchew said the city hired Faup before his conviction, so a background check would not have flagged the case.

“We hired him before any charges on that were filed or before he was convicted,” Minchew said. “If the staff with the city had known they would never hire someone who had that sort of record.”

Minchew said the city’s next steps include putting safeguards in place so this doesn’t happen again.

“The smartest way to do it is just to go with Park Mobile,” Minchew said. “I would think you could train the citizens to use it that way and get away from the change.”

Click here to follow the original article.

Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Several roads in Mid-Missouri are flooded after multiple rounds of storms came through the area on Sunday and Monday.

Boone County Joint Communications sent a notification at 9:41 a.m. stating that Strawn Road in Columbia was closed because of flooding between Interstate 70 Drive Southwest and West Worley Street. A viewer submitted a photo showing the road flooded out.

Just after midnight on Tuesday morning, BCJC also sent a notification warning of flooding on West Akeman Bridge Road at Perche Creek and North Route E.

Multiple roads in Cole County were also closed because of flooding on Tuesday, including: the 11100 block of North Branch Road, the 5900 block of Bainer Road, the 1400 block of Waterford Road, the 2800 block of Meadowsford Road and the 7900 block of East Lohman Road. Those road closures were announced by Cole County Public Works.

The 7400 block of Vaughn Ford Road was closed on Monday because of flooding, but Cole County Public Works announced it was reopened at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Click here to follow the original article.

Olivia Hayes

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

During Monday’s Columbia Collegiate Advisory Board meeting, Office of Violence Prevention Administrator D’Markus Thomas-Brown detailed his department’s efforts and gave an update on the progress of an anticipated violence analysis report.

In January, city leaders started collaborating with the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform to curb violent crime in the community. NICJR is expected to deliver a “Gun Violence Problem Analysis” and a “Community Violence Landscape Analysis.” The study is being conducted in partnership with the Columbia Police Department.

At the time, city leaders said the final report was expected to be ready in four-to-six months. As the deadline nears, Thomas-Brown said at Monday’s meeting that the report will show where “gaps” in the community are and provide suggestions for how to fill them.

Despite nothing official, Thomas-Brown discussed one area in Columbia lacking support.

“Hospital-based violence intervention prevention, we don’t have any of that here and it could be that we don’t necessarily need that, but it’s a huge gap,” Thomas-Brown said. “So being able to work with other entities to make sure that gap is filled through collaboration.”

Thomas-Brown said the NICJR report will also help keep city leaders accountable, as it should also provide the staffing and funding needs for his office to meet the national standard of success in the violence prevention sphere.

Click here to follow the original article.

Mitchell Kaminski

HARRISBURG, Mo. (KMIZ) 

A culvert break along North Route F near Harrisburg forced the closure of part of the roadway Monday evening after rushing water damaged the road surface.

The failure happened around 5 p.m. in the 17100 block of North Route F when water surged through a rusted pipe and caused several holes in the culvert. 

When ABC 17 News arrived, a resident was standing in the road, warning drivers not to cross. Part of the roadway also appeared to have already started to cave in, with residents claiming it was due to water damage. 

Missouri Department of Transportation crews arrived shortly before 6:30 p.m. and officially shut down that stretch of road, turning several vehicles around.

A resident said the culvert had been a concern for some time because of visible rust. He also said the area was partially flooded earlier in the day and that he could hear water pounding against the side of the pipe before it cracked.

“This is the highest I’ve ever seen it. Last year, there was something kind of like this, but it wasn’t near what we had today,” Harrisburg resident Zach Perkins said when asked about the flooding near the culvert. “It was about 4:30 or so whenever I was able to get down here, the old driveway up here was, say, about a foot and a half, 2 feet underwater.” 

Perkins added he could hear water pounding inside the pipe shortly before the culvert broke. 

The road damage came as waterways across Mid-Missouri rose following heavy rainfall. According to the National Weather Service, the Missouri River reached 23 feet at Boonville. Flood waters were also measured at 26 feet along the Missouri River at Glasgow, while Moniteau Creek near Fayette reached 19 feet.

Click here to follow the original article.

Haley Swaino

SALINE COUNTY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Tedd Wiseman got a call Monday morning that led him to a shocking discovery.

“I couldn’t believe it. One of the volunteer firemen was calling me on the phone, and he said, ‘Man, you all got heavy bin damage,” Wiseman said

He is the manager at Central Missouri AgriService’s Slater location in Saline County, where storms hit early Monday.

Wiseman said he couldn’t believe what he saw when he arrived at work. Grain elevators were torn open, with extensive damage. Most of the heavy damage was to bean and soybean storage bins, Wiseman said. About 600,000 bushels worth of beans were lost in four bins. Crews were still assessing if a fifth bin was a loss Monday afternoon.

Wiseman said the bins were like a skyline for Slater.

“I stared at these things for 40 years; they just always stood here. They’re built in the seventies,” Wiseman said.

As cleanup crews worked to remove large pieces of damaged debris on Monday, Wiseman said management would soon sit down at the drawing board to decide what comes next in rebuilding.

That was what many people across Saline County were faced with after the storms.

An ABC 17 News reporter saw a tree crush the front of a home in the 300 block of South Jefferson Street in Slater.

A downed powerline pole toppled another, seemingly abandoned, house in nearby Gilliam on South Bartlett Street off Highway 240. A torn-apart metal barn was seen in pieces blown across Highway 240. Some pieces of it were mangled in trees.

At least four dozen power lines were seen snapped while driving through parts of Saline and Howard counties. Thousands were left in the dark.

The City of Glasgow declared a state of emergency after the town lost power, which could be restored in two to three days, the city announced on its social media.

An ABC 17 News reporter saw part of the Tri-County Trust Company’s roof blown off in Glasgow on Monday. Electric crews were seen across the city working on downed power lines— some fully on the ground, some mangled in trees.

For all the damage and cleanup ahead, Wiseman said he feels there is still much to be grateful for.

“Everybody seems to be in pretty decent humor. And we’re lucky that, to my knowledge, nobody has been hurt in this. And the only thing that’s really been tore up is property. That can be can be rebuilt,” Wiseman said.

No injuries have been reported as of Monday evening.

Click here to follow the original article.