Category: kmiz-local-news

Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Starting in early September, Highway 50 over Vetter Lane in Jefferson City will be narrowed a crews work on the bridge for several months.

According to the Missouri Department of Transportation, starting Sept. 8, construction crews will start to narrow Highway 50 over Vetter Lane to one lane in each direction. Traffic will be head-to-head during this work.

Work will be done to replace joint seals, apply protective coating to the substructure and repair the bridge deck, the release states. The lanes will have a 12-foot width restriction and reduced speeds in place.

MoDOT says two ramps will be closed during the work: the Clark Avenue ramp onto eastbound Highway 50 and the Eastland Drive ramp onto westbound Highway 50.

The traffic shift will take multiple days and is expected to be done by Sept. 10th, weather permitting.

The full project will not be done until December, according to MoDOT.

MoDOT said in a release that this work could cause traffic delays for several miles during peak commute and weekend travel.

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Randolph County man has been charged in Audrain County with eight child sex charges stemming back two years.

Floyd Yoder is charged with two counts of first-degree statutory rape of a person less than 12 years old, five counts of statutory sodomy – deviated sexual intercourse with a person less than 12 years old, and one count of first-degree rape with a victim less than 12 years old.

Court documents state that a confidential person left a voicemail for the Audrain County Sheriff on July 29.

During a follow-up with the person, deputies learned an 11-year-old girl had reported a man in the community had been doing sexual things to her in Spring 2024.

Deputies said the person told deputies that they didn’t know that Yonder was the suspect until April 2025. They also said Yonder allegedly admitted he tried to assault two juveniles, including a three-year-old.

Documents state that Yonder allegedly told deputies in July during a conversation with an investigator from the Missouri Children’s Division that he assaulted both victims at his house in rural Clark.

Yonder allegedly admitted to deputies during a post-Miranda interview that he had touched both children multiple times over the past two years.

Prosecutors charged him as a predatory sexual offender, which means he could be sentenced to life in prison, because there were at least two victims.

Online records show he was served a warrant on Tuesday.

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A panel of judges has ordered a Boone County circuit court to correct a judgment in a 2022 Columbia shooting case.

Terrance Johnson was found guilty by a jury in March 2024 and sentenced in April 2024 to 14 years behind bars for a 2022 shooting. He was found guilty of first-degree assault, shooting a gun at a motor vehicle/person, unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action.

The Western Appellate District ruled that the court made a mistake when entering the written judgment that was different from the jury verdict and what the judge said in court.

Court documents state that the prosecution admitted to this mistake and agreed that the circuit court plainly erred in entering a written judgment that was different from the jury verdict and the court’s oral pronouncement. This required the court to “correctly memorialize the verdict and pronouncement of sentence.”

The panel denied Johnson on another part of the appeal after he claimed the court refused to submit to the jury his proposed defense-of-others instructions on arguments related to self-defense.

The court ruled that while his defense was that he acted in self-defense, the panel did not find any error in the circuit court’s refusal to instruct the jury, as he did not introduce the argument or evidence to support a defense-of-others instruction.

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Haley Swaino

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Cole County judge heard several motions on Ryan Ferguson’s historic verdict against Travelers Insurance Tuesday morning.

Both sides are asking for adjustments to the final dollar amount that Ferguson will receive.

A Cole County jury sided with Ferguson and six former Columbia police detectives in November in their lawsuit against Travelers Insurance.

They claimed Travelers refused to pay out the remaining $2.9 million of a more than $11 million settlement that Ferguson and the detectives were granted after his wrongful murder conviction of Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt.

Attorney Michael Berry asked Cole County Judge Cotton Walker in June to add at least $1.3 million to the $43.8 million judgment he awarded Ferguson. Berry said Walker did not properly add 129 days’ interest on the award.

Walker determined the amount of annual interest added to the award from Jan. 16, 2008, to Feb. 7, 2025. Berry argued that interest should run through June 16’s final award, adding another 129 days, or $1.3 million more. That would also affect how much money Travelers would be expected to pay in post-judgment interest.

“The verdict right now is at [$]43 million because there’s prejudgment and post-judgment interest,” Ferguson’s attorney, Kathleen Zellner, said. “We think there was an error in that calculation, and it should actually be [$]45 million. So that was one of the motions, that the judge had just miscalculated the number of days.”

Zellner reiterated those arguments in court Tuesday. She said Travelers disputed multiple things, from proof of bad faith to award calculations.

“They’re trying to argue that we didn’t prove the bad faith, that we’re not entitled to the punitive damages. They’ve disputed the interest rate calculations. All of the things you do when you get a really bad result,” Zellner said.

She said she doesn’t think the judge overturning those things is very likely.

“He’s heard a lot of these arguments along the way. There’s nothing really new, and he rejected all those arguments when he entered the judgment on June 16,” Zellner said.

The defense argued that interest on the judgment should be subject to Missouri’s cap on punitive damages.

Zellner said the correct decision was made.

If the court were to follow the defense argument, that would reduce the punitive damages to just $16 million, a reduction of $8 million.

Zellner told ABC 17 News after Tuesday’s motion hearing that Walker will decide by Oct. 16.

They will then have 30 days until an appeal is filed.

“This verdict is going to be affirmed,” Zellner said. “And if it goes up on appeal, it’s going to be even higher because of the interest that’s running.”

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Madison Stuerman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Hickman High School was on a brief secure protocol after a report of a single gunshot was heard near the school on Monday.

The Columbia Police Department said in a social media post that officers were called to Forest Avenue in response to a single shot heard at 11:55 a.m.

Officers found a person in the 1000 block of Grand Avenue who reported shooting a gun at an aggressive dog.

The protocol was lifted by 12:30 p.m. on Monday.

Columbia Police said in the post that there was no outstanding threat to the community.

This is a developing story.

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Matthew Sanders

KANSAS CITY (KSHB)

U.S. Rep. Mark Alford (R-Raytown) is holding a series of town halls around his sprawling district this week.

Those town halls include stops in Camdenton and St. Robert on Tuesday, dates in Harrisburg and Warsaw on Wednesday, and Fayette on Thursday. Click here for a full list of dates.

Alford represents Missouri’s Fourth Congressional District, which covers a large part of Mid-Missouri, including northern Boone County.

TV station KSHB followed Alford to Harrisonville on Monday.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Prosecutors in Gasconade County have charged a Maries County man with two felonies after a crash that killed two people Sunday night.

Tyler C. Schmidt of Belle was charged Tuesday with DWI causing two deaths and DWI causing serious physical injury. It wasn’t clear on Tuesday morning whether he was in custody.

Schmidt is accused of being the drunken driver in a car that crashed Sunday night in Owensville. One person was declared dead at the scene, and another was declared dead after being flown to a hospital. A third passenger suffered serious injuries, according to court documents.

Schmidt failed a field sobriety test and a breath test, documents say. He allegedly told a state trooper that, on a scale of 1 to 10, his intoxication was a 5.

No hearings have been scheduled.

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Matthew Sanders

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Prairie Home woman suffered moderate injuries when a car rear-ended the buggy she was riding in on Monday night.

The crash happened on Highway 87 north of Apple Drive in Prairie Home, according to a Missouri State Highway Patrol crash report. A Chevrolet Malibu sedan driven by a 22-year-old Prairie Home man hit the buggy from behind, throwing its occupants out of the vehicle and pushing the buggy off the road.

The horse pulling the buggy was not injured, but it ran off after the crash, an MSHP spokesman said.

The 28-year-old buggy passenger was taken by ambulance to University Hospital. The 23-year-old buggy driver was uninjured.

The car had to be towed from the scene.

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Jazsmin Halliburton

FRANKLIN COUNTY, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Steelville man who is accused of killing a Hermann police officer is set to be in front of a judge for a motion hearing Tuesday afternoon, after his defense filed a motion to strike the state’s intent to seek the death penalty.

Kenneth Simpson is accused of killing Sergeant Mason Griffith and injuring officer Adam Sullentrup by shooting them on March 12, 2023, at a Casey’s in Hermann. 

Simpson is charged with first-degree murder, two counts of armed-criminal action, first-degree assault, two counts of unlawful gun possession, unlawful possession of an illegal weapon, possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest.

The state of Missouri filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Simpson in September 2023. Simpson’s lawyers filed a motion to strike the state’s death penalty and disqualify the Attorney General’s office from the case earlier this month.

According to online court documents, the prosecution gave three reasons why the defense’s arguments in its opposition motion against the death penalty and the Attorney General’s Office should be denied.

In the state’s response to the motion, its first reason is that the motion is moot because Attorney General Andrew Bailey had announced his resignation to take a position as FBI co-deputy director.

The prosecution also argues that the disqualification of the entire Attorney General’s Office is not warranted because there is no conflict of interest. The state also argues that Simpson’s request to strike the death penalty motion made no mention of a Missouri law that would justify his argument.

The state argues Simpson’s request to dismiss the death penalty is not based on any misconduct by the Attorney General, but political ads made by a third party.

Simpson’s jury trial is set to begin January and a jury will be pooled from Greene County.

Simpson will be in front of Judge Craig Hellmann at 3 p.m. in the Franklin County Courthouse.

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Matthew Sanders

Mizzou kicks off its football season this week with a Thursday night home matchup against Central Arkansas.

Tigers fans are already in anticipation of another season, hoping to see their team with 10 games for yet another year. But things aren’t all rainbows in Tiger country — some students say the new process for getting tickets is a downgrade.

Meanwhile, the price to attend a game is rising. Available tickets for the Sept. 20 game against South Carolina are well north of $100 apiece.

Do you plan to attend a game this season? Let us know by voting in the poll.

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