A House proposal that became law last year, to toughen Missouri’s penalties for “smash and grab” attacks on ATMs, could be slowing down an organized crime ring in the Kansas City area. Its sponsor says that the ring’s reach, and the repercussions of this new law, could extend into several states.
Representative Rick Francis (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
One of two men arrested for stealing a Richmond, Missouri ATM has been charged under that law, which took effect in August. It made the theft of a teller machine or its contents a Class C felony, punishable by three to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
According to a probable cause statement, Montez Sherman was one of the two men who early on New Year’s Day used a stolen truck to pull an ATM from its foundation and used a crowbar to break it open. More than $15,000 was taken and more than $32,000 in damage was done.
Francis worked on this legislation after learning that the Missouri Highway Patrol had recorded a sudden increase in smash-and-grab ATM attacks. Those numbers went from only two such crimes statewide in all of 2019 to at least 28 in 2021. When Francis began researching the issue in 2022, more than 20 ATMs had already been targeted in that year and more than $200,000 had been stolen, and that was not for the full year.
He learned that many of those incidents in Missouri were connected to a crime ring that had originated in Texas and spread from there.
Francis and the law enforcement personnel he’s spoken to say the fact that criminal organizations are behind these crimes, anything that could deter them will make Missourians safer.
That Sherman and the others involved in the Richmond incident used a stolen truck to pull the ATM is similar to many of the other smash-and-grabs in Missouri and other states. Richmond Police believe these individuals are part of a ring that has been committing such crimes in the Kansas City Metro area, but Francis thinks their ties go even further.
Francis called it deeply satisfying to see an issue on which he and his colleagues spent so much time and effort, making a difference in Missouri, calling it the second such reminder in recent weeks.
Two weeks ago, House members heard that for the first time in Missouri, a healthy newborn baby was left in a Safe Haven Baby Box, to be safely surrendered to emergency responders. That “baby box” is allowed under a 2021 House proposal.
For more than four decades, two Missouri families have been among an untold number who are going through the anguish of not knowing what happened to a loved one who simply vanished. Backers of a proposal coming before a House committee this week say its passage could be the key to immediate answers in those cases and many more, not just in Missouri but nationwide.
53-year-old Geneva Verneal Adams usually didn’t go out at night, and she didn’t drink, but she loved to dance, so on July 14, 1976, she asked her daughter to go out with her. Lonely after her first husband had died and a second marriage ended in divorce, she was smiling big when she left, hoping to have a fun night out.
Her daughter decided to call it a night early, but Adams was enjoying dancing with a man she’d met at the Artesian Lounge in Herculaneum and opted to stay. Adams left the bar with him around 1 the next morning. What happened to her after that has never been known.
Crump, who was 17 when his mother went missing, has never given up looking. Many years and many disappointments later, a police officer – the son of one of the original detectives on his mother’s case – gave him another glimmer of hope. He had learned of a body that had been found just weeks after his mother disappeared and in the same general area, went unidentified, and was buried not far away in Illinois. Many of its characteristics matched those of his mother, and it was going to be exhumed to see if this was Geneva.
When the grave was opened, it was empty.
Some 90 miles away and three years after Geneva disappeared, 19-year-old Cheryl Anne Scherer called home from her job at a small self-service gas station in Scott City. She talked to her mother about what would be served for dinner that night and some sewing Scherer planned to do when she got home. Authorities can account for all but ten minutes of what went on after that phone call, and in that ten-minute window, something happened to Scherer and her family never heard from her again.
Cheryl Scherer in 1977, and an age-progressed photo of how she might appear today.
More than 14 years passed before Diane Scherer-Morris accepted that her sister might never come.
Both of these are families holding on to hope, and both of them could stand another chance of finally getting closure through the passage of House Bill 1716.
Both are asking lawmakers to give them that chance.
HB 1716 would require that all law enforcement agencies in Missouri participate in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, better known as NamUs. It is a nationwide database of cases of missing persons and unidentified human remains. Each case entry might include physical descriptions or DNA evidence, or both.
That database was launched in 2007. The more data is entered, the more open cases of unidentified bodies and missing persons can be advanced and even solved, and more families like those of Geneva Adams and Cheryl Scherer can finally get answers.
Many law enforcement agencies, however, still don’t enter their information on such cases into that database. Only 12 states require that the agencies within their borders participate. By proposing HB 1716, Representative Tricia Byrnes (R-Wentzville) wants to bring Missouri into the fold.
Getting all Missouri agencies to participate in NamUs would not only lead to answers in this state but anywhere in the U.S. Data in the System has resulted in connections that span multiple states, such as when a body found in 1982 in Arizona was just three years ago identified as that of a teen who disappeared from St. Louis in 1981. That case remains unsolved, but her family was “awestruck” to finally know what happened.
Cheryl Scherer’s brother, Anthony, said he is more than ready for his family to also get an answer. For these long decades, he has considered the numerous theories that have been proposed about what happened, including that Cheryl was a victim of notorious serial killers Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas, who authorities say were operating in the region at the time.
Steve Crump wants this bill to pass so that other families might be spared the years and years of pain he experienced. He still thinks his answer could be found with the body that was supposed to be in that Illinois grave.
Geneva Adams’ case is a perfect example of why more agencies need to get active with NamUs, according to Courtney Nelson, Board Member and Advocate of the Missouri Persons Support Center.
She said if the System had been in place in 1976, authorities might have sooner made the connection between that body and Adams’ disappearance. Instead, it wasn’t made until 2018, and poor documentation appears to have led to digging up the wrong grave.
Nelson is one among those who brought the idea to Rep. Byrnes. She said passing HB 1716 would send a message to families like those of Geneva Adams and Cheryl Scherer, that law enforcement still cares and hasn’t forgotten.
HB 1716 will be the subject of a hearing by the House Committee on Emerging Issues, on Wednesday at 4:00. The hearing can be watched live through the House website, but Rep. Byrnes is calling on those concerned with missing persons to come and testify or submit testimony online.
HB 1716 would also require additional training for law enforcement on unidentified and missing persons cases; require that fingerprints from unidentified remains be submitted to the Highway Patrol and that a dental examination must be performed on remains; and that an unidentified person record in NamUs be created within 30 days of the discovery of such remains.
How Missouri law dealing with orders of protection defines stalking only covers the following of a person or unwanted communication. Roberts’ proposal, House Bill 292, would broaden it to cover things like the use of cell phones, GPS, cameras, or third parties to observe, threaten, or communicate about or to someone.
The House Committee on Crime Prevention heard from Janice Thompson Gehrke. She about her experience being harassed by her ex-husband, who is now in prison for shooting his ex-fiancé and her boyfriend. This included sending his roommate to her workplace multiple times on the pretense of conducting business, having friends monitor her on social media, and using her information to have her phone spammed with contest and prize offers.
She spoke of another victim who is being harassed through threats on social media, but the law does not allow her to seek an order of protection because, as she put it, “it’s not technically him.”
Roberts has also filed a bill (House Bill 744) that would allow victims to seek a lifetime order of protection against an individual. Orders of protection are only valid for a year at a time. That has been referred to a committee.
He said throughout his career he was frustrated many times that he couldn’t do anything to help a victim of stalking and abuse, but one case frequently comes to mind in which a mother and elementary school-aged child were being abused.
The Missouri House has given initial approval to five bills related to crime issues in Missouri. The bills were filed in a special session of the legislature called by Governor Mike Parson (R).
Representative Johnathan Patterson (photo courtesy: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Republicans say the legislation will help address violent crime in a year when Kansas City is on pace to set a new record for the annual number of homicides, and St. Louis is in the midst of a wave of murders and other violence. Democrats decried the legislation as accomplishing nothing and said the special session was called only for political reasons.
House Bill 66 would create a fund to pay for law enforcement agencies to protect witnesses or potential witnesses and their immediate families during an investigation or ahead of a trial.
Representative Peter Merideth (photo courtesy: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Merideth said he would still support the bill, but also expressed concern that the offer of state money to pay for a potential witness’ room and board could be used to incent false testimony and lead to wrongful convictions.
The House voted 147-3 to send HB 66 to the Senate.
House Bill 46, sponsored by Representative Ron Hicks (R-Dardenne Prarie), would temporarily lift the requirement that St. Louis Police officers, EMS personnel, and firefighters live in the City of St. Louis. The residency requirement would be reinstated after September 1, 2023.
St. Louis area Democrats say the bill infringes on local control because St. Louis residents are set to vote on whether to remove the residency requirement in November.
House Bill 11 would increase the penalty for endangering the welfare of a child from a misdemeanor to a first-degree felony. Bill sponsor Nick Schroer (R-O’Fallon) said criminals are taking advantage of juveniles by giving them guns and encouraging them to participate in violent crime.
House Bill 16, also sponsored by Schroer, would define the unlawful transfer of a weapon to a minor as the lending or sale of a firearm to a minor for the purpose of interfering with or avoiding an arrest or investigation. It would change current law to allow such transfers to be a felony even if done with parental permission.
Representative Nick Schroer (photo courtesy: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
The House also approved 133-11House Bill 2, sponsored by Representative Barry Hovis (R-Whitewater), which aims to clarify current law on the admissibility of witness statements when a witness has been tampered with or intimidated. If a court finds a defendant tried to keep a witness from testifying and the witness failed to appear, an otherwise inadmissible statement from that witness could be allowed into evidence.
All of these except for HB 16 were passed with a clause that would make them effective immediately upon being signed by the governor.
