One state lawmaker says too many Missourians don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods, and he believes tougher laws are the answer. A House panel has endorsed his proposal.
Representative Jim Murphy (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Representative Jim Murphy (R-St. Louis) says groups of individuals are routinely going through neighborhoods in his south St. Louis County district seeking opportunities to steal from homes and cars. This typically involves pulling door handles on multiple cars, looking for those that are unlocked.
Murphy told his colleagues that the people committing these acts feel no fear of punishment. He said the way Missouri statutes are written doesn’t cover these acts, or they fall under crimes which carry too little punishment. In incidents involving juveniles, the penalties are so lenient that when law enforcement does catch them in these acts, they are often simply let go.
He is sponsoring House Bill 1510, which would create the crime of “unlawfully gaining entry into a motor vehicle,” defined by the act of lifting the handles of, or otherwise attempting to open, the doors of successive vehicles in an attempt to gain entry. It would be a class E felony, punishable by up to four years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000.
It would also extend the crime of second-degree burglary to include unlawfully entering a vehicle, or any part of a vehicle, with the intent to commit a felony or theft. A person could commit such an offense with any part of the body, or with an object connected with the body. Burglary is a class D felony, which carries up to seven years in prison. If a person violating this provision has or steals a firearm, it would be a class C felony, punishable by three to ten years in prison.
The committee has voted to advance that bill. It will next be considered by another committee, and from there could be sent to the full House for consideration.
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.
Laws are being passed or considered in multiple states and other nations which require those who kill parents while driving drunk to pay restitution to surviving children. Now the woman who is the driving force behind the idea says it’s time for it to be enacted where it began: Missouri.
Mason and Bentley Williams (Photo courtesy: Cecelia Williams)
In April 2021, in Jefferson County, a drunk driver caused an accident that killed 24-year-old Lacey Newton, 30-year-old Cordell Williams, and four-month-old Cordell Williams, Jr., of Bonne Terre. The couple left behind two surviving children, Bentley and Mason, now being cared for by Cordell’s mother, Cecelia Williams.
Williams soon began crafting what has become known as “Bentley and Mason’s Law,” or more commonly “Bentley’s Law.” It would require people who are convicted of killing a parent or parents while driving drunk to pay child support for the care of surviving children.
The committee also heard from the mother of 23-year-old Racheal Grace Neldon, who was one of four people killed in an accident she says was caused by a drunk driver in April of last year. Jennifer Neldon told the committee while this bill wouldn’t help her family, it could be a deterrent to at least some people who would drive drunk.
A proposal aimed at expanding child care in Missouri, which received broad House support last year, is among the earliest of bills to be approved by a House committee this year.
Representative Brenda Shields (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Numerous supporters, including many from Missouri’s business organizations, testified at the hearing about what they say is a crisis facing the state’s employers and, therefore, the state as a whole.
Representative Brenda Shields’s (R-St. Joseph)House Bill 1488 would create three new tax credits, one of which is for employers who help fund child care for their employees, and one that is for providers who boost their employees’ salaries or improve their facilities.
Shields told the committee that 58 percent of businesses in Missouri report that child care is a barrier to recruiting employees, and 63 percent say it is a barrier to retaining employees. Parents says child care is often unavailable, and 43 percent of them say when it is, it is unaffordable.
She said her proposal would let communities respond to these issues in whatever ways best suit their needs.
Besides the economic issues, Shields said improving child care throughout Missouri would mean improving the lives of children in the state and offering stability to more of them.
The proposed Child Care Contribution Tax Credit would be for up to 75 percent of a contribution used to improve a child care provider’s facility, equipment, or services, or to improve the salaries of a facilities’ staff. The Employer Provided Child Care Assistance Tax Credit would be for up to 30 percent of child care expenditures paid by an employer. The Child Care Providers Tax Credit would be for up to 30 percent of the cost of improvements made by providers, such as facility or service expansion or employee raises.
Each program would be capped at $200,000 per taxpayer, and $20 million overall, however an additional fifteen percent would be allowed in areas considered “child care deserts,” regions of the state with the most acute discrepancies between children in need of care and availabilities.
Emily van Schenkhof with The Missouri Children’s Trust Fund, which works to prevent child abuse, reminded the legislators that the issue isn’t just about the workforce and the economy.
She noted that when the state tries to get businesses to come here, it touts its location, its access to multiple modes of transportation, and its infrastructure, but businesses want to know that they will be able to find employees, and that those employees’ ability to work will be supported.
Veteran suicide is an issue the Missouri House of Representatives has sought to address for some time, and in the past year it touched the life of the man who has led that effort. He entered the 2024 legislative session with renewed passion to see his legislation become law.
The House last year voted 156-0 in support of requiring the Missouri Veterans Commission to come up with recommendations on how veteran suicide can be prevented; and to report annually on new recommendations, and the implementation and effectiveness of state efforts. That bill was approved 8-0 by a Senate committee but did not reach passage in that chamber. This year the proposal is back, and is one of the first House measures to get a committee hearing.
Asked why the rate in Missouri exceeds the national average, Kerchoff said the answer isn’t known, and that’s one more reason why he wants to see HB 1495 pass.
Representative Jim Schulte (R-New Bloomfield), in speaking to the stigmas facing veterans seeking mental health help, talked about a friend who did get treatment. He was then, initially, denied reentry to the National Guard because he’d sought treatment.
A number of state agencies, including the Missouri House, have worked to drive up awareness of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and Griffith said that remains one of the best resources available for those seeking help.
Griffith and the staff of House Communications spent time this past summer creating a series of public service announcements for radio, television, and social media that target suicide and specifically veteran suicide. Those will soon be available for circulation.
The Veterans Committee voted unanimously to advance HB 1495.
One thing Republicans and Democrats in the Missouri House agree on is that the legislature must renew Federal Reimbursement Allowance (FRA) legislation this year, or a massive hole will be blown out of the state’s operating budget.
House Speaker Dean Plocher and Minority Floor Leader Crystal Quade agree the legislature must pass an FRA extension this year. (Photos: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
The FRA has been passed 17 times since 1992. It is a tax paid by Medicaid providers in Missouri which the federal government more than matches in paying it back to the state. That helps to cover the MO HealthNet program, and additional allowances also cover nursing facilities, pharmacy costs, and ambulance services.
For the twelfth time, Missouri legislators will be asked by the mother of a little girl killed by a stray bullet to increase penalties for the careless firing of guns.
Blair Shanahan Lane
The legislature this past session sent “Blair’s Law” to the desk of Governor Mike Parson (R). It was the first time that proposal reached the desk of a governor. Parson expressed support for it calling it something he’d “like to sign into law,” but it was only one measure among several that were combined into one bill, Senate Bill 189. He had issues with some of the other measures, and so it was vetoed.
Blair’s Law is named for Blair Shanahan Lane, who was 11 when she was hit by a stray bullet while celebrating Independence Day, 2011, with her family. Someone more than half a mile away carelessly fired their gun into the air and one of those bullets struck Blair in the neck. She died the next day.
The man who fired that gun served 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter. No state law directly addresses what is often called, “celebratory gunfire.” Every legislative session Blair’s death, her mother has come to Jefferson City to change that.
Michele Shanahan DeMoss said since Blair’s Law was vetoed, after being passed for the first time after more than a decade of work, she has been, “thoughtful.
The “processes” to which she refers are the renewed efforts to see Blair’s Law become part of Missouri law. That is a top priority for two state lawmakers, and that is why the proposal was again among those prefiled on December 1; the first day that bills could be filed for the 2024 session.
One of those legislators is Representative Mark Sharp (D), who will be carrying that proposal for the fifth straight year. He said even though it was vetoed, he and other supporters see its passage last year as a win.
Representative Mark Sharp (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Joining the list of legislators who over the years have sponsored Blair’s Law is Belton Republican Sherri Gallick, who is in her second year in the Missouri House. Gallick met DeMoss while campaigning in 2022 and that’s when she first heard Blair’s story.
House Bills 1437 (Gallick) and 1477 (Sharp) would specify that a person is guilty of unlawful discharge of a firearm if they, with criminal negligence, discharge a firearm in or into the limits of a municipality. A first offense would be a class “A” misdemeanor which carries up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000; a second time would be a class “E” felony carrying up to four years in prison; and third and any subsequent offense would be a class “D” felony, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Even as efforts to pass Blair’s Law continue, incidents involving stray gunfire keep happening. Last month, while in her own bedroom in her south Kansas City home, 11 year-old Lauren Reddick was hit by two bullets. One of those left her paralyzed.
On New Year’s Eve, the Department’s SoundSpotter system identified more than 2,300 rounds fired between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. on January 1. That was more than double the total detected by that sound capturing technology one year prior.
Over the years that Blair’s Law has been proposed, the attention it has gotten has created awareness of the dangers presented by careless gunfire, and its supporters hope that will continue to be a residual benefit of their efforts.
Representative Sherri Gallick (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Gallick, like other Republicans who have carried or spoken in support of the legislation through the years, says among other things it is an issue of responsible gun ownership.
Both representatives say they are optimistic about the legislation’s chances of passage in 2024, given its overwhelming bipartisan support and the Governor’s message. They also commend DeMoss, who they say is “inspiring” as she has remained consistent and undaunted.
