Latest news with #FOX2News
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Kehoe, White House offer differing status updates of federal disaster assistance for May 16 tornadoes
ST. LOUIS – Two weeks ago, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe requested President Donald Trump issue a federal emergency declaration for the state of Missouri in response to the May 16 tornadoes and severe storms. Last week, Kehoe asked the president to approve a federal disaster declaration. Neither have been approved yet. 'No city is equipped to deal with a disaster the size of this tornado, period. And we need FEMA; we need FEMA's help,' St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said. But Spencer noted Monday that getting FEMA's help is a process. 'We are not the oldest, in fact, we are the newest application,' she said. 'We do have the support of our governor, and I am going to remain constructive and hopeful through this process, because I believe it's the best way for us to move forward in the best shot at getting the federal partnership that we need to be able to best serve our community.' FEMA representatives have been in St. Louis as part of joint preliminary damage assessments (PDAs). The teams are tasked with surveying and verifying damage to determine if individual and public assistance can be requested from FEMA. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now 'For those that don't have insurance, if there's a major disaster declaration that is approved, then FEMA can come in and provide some additional assistance, along with a host of other voluntary organizations, state partners, other federal partners,' FEMA spokesperson Ryan Lowry-Lee said in a May 28 interview. FEMA PDAs are a key step in determining whether St. Louis will qualify for a major disaster declaration. FEMA tells me Gov. Kehoe submitted his request for federal assistance to the agency's regional office. They then sent their recommendations to FEMA headquarters. FEMA headquarters sent its recommendations to President Trump. Now, it's up to the president—and only the president—to issue the federal declaration. The governor's office tells FOX 2 News that Kehoe and his team continue to be in discussions with the White House as well as Missouri's federal delegation regarding this FEMA request. They do not have any further updates at this time. FOX 2 also contacted the White House for an update. A White House official responded with the following statement: The President responds to each request for Federal assistance under the Stafford Act with great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement—not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters. While the President's decisions are communicated directly to the Governor of an affected State, the Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with State and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged. White House statement Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Sheriff pleads the Fifth repeatedly over questions about mysterious death
BOWLING GREEN, Mo. – There's a deepening mystery about a Pike County, Missouri, death and alleged cover-up by law enforcement, which FOX 2 News has covered for months. It's now taken a dramatic turn, with the sheriff at the center of controversy refusing to answer questions under oath. It involves the death of Nathaniel Mueller, whose family continues searching for answers. The Bowling Green police chief has alleged a cover up by the sheriff's department. On March 14, 2025, he alleged, 'It is clear that the Pike County Sheriff's office knew the location of Mueller's body for a month prior to this discovery of his remains.' Mueller disappeared last December and was reportedly found dead in a pond on Feb. 28. 'Everything revolving around Nathanial. We are not going to stop,' Ashley Ashby, Nathanel's godmother, said. Ashby hoped to finally get answers in a recent deposition of Pike County Sheriff Stephen Korte. 'I wanna take the Fifth on this one,' Korte said, repeatedly declining to answer questions about Mueller. 'I'm going to take the Fifth on this, also,' he said to another question. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now The sheriff invoked his right even for basic questions posed by trial attorney Mark Pedroli, who asked at one point, 'Where was Nathaniel Mueller's body found?' Sheriff Korte again took the Fifth. Pedroli asked, 'Was Nathaniel Mueller murdered to your knowledge?' The sheriff looked at his attorney, then answers, 'I'll take the Fifth.' 'I'm very disturbed,' Ashby said after hearing about the sheriff's responses. 'We definitely don't understand why it's taken so long to get answers.' The Missouri State Highway Patrol is investigating, while the sheriff's major, who's accused in the cover up, remains on duty – one of the few questions Sheriff Korte would answer. Pedroli asked, 'Is [the major] under investigation by you?' 'No,' the Sheriff answered. Bowling Green's police chief outed that major, without mentioning him by name, in a March news conference. The chief's attorney, Chris Lozano, was there and added, 'I know there are going to be repercussions. We are ready for them.' Lozano also responded to this latest development, saying, 'The Fifth Amendment is a cornerstone of the judicial system, but when a non-defendant elected official takes the Fifth, it should give us all pause.' FOX 2 followed up with Sheriff Korte, who said it would be irresponsible to make any comments, even in a deposition about a case being investigated by highway patrol. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Yahoo
Trio charged with robbing man leaving casino
ST. LOUIS – Just over two months ago, FOX 2 News reported on a robbery after a man told police he was held up at gunpoint after accepting a ride from three strangers. Two men and a woman have now been charged in the investigation. According to probable cause statements from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, officers received a call for a 'hold-up' just after 11 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, in the 5000 block of Goodfellow Boulevard, located in the Walnut Park West neighborhood. Officers met with the victim, a 41-year-old man, who explained that he was at DraftKings at the Casino Queen in East St. Louis, Illinois, when the trio offered him a ride home. The victim said he accepted their offer. The trio drove back across the Mississippi River and took the man to an alley along Goodfellow. The victim said the two men each pulled a gun on him and demanded his money. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now The armed men stole approximately $2,500 in cash from the victim, struck him in the face with one of their guns, and then forced the victim from their vehicle. Investigators reviewed security footage and observed the victim and suspects exit the casino and enter a gray 2008 Honda Civic with Ohio license plates. Police said detectives eventually identified the trio as Jeffrey M. Burnett, 32; IE Mone D. Edwards, 27; and Jalyn T. Freeman, 32. All three had prior criminal records, with Burnett and Freeman having felony convictions. Freeman was arrested on May 16 and remains in custody, pending a May 28 detention hearing. Arrest warrants have been filed for Burnett and Edwards. The St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office charged Freeman and Edwards with first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. Burnett faces the same charges and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Yahoo
Missouri Highway Patrol reopens probe into Crocker overdose death
CROCKER, Mo. – The Missouri State Highway Patrol confirms it has reopened an investigation into a 2022 overdose death after concerns with how a small-town police department handled the case. Now, a Wildwood couple is hoping it can finally get answers three years after their son died. Jeffrey Pratt Jr. died in Crocker, Missouri, in 2022. The county coroner declared the death a drug overdose, but case records raise serious questions about the investigation. 'He was a great kid. Liked by everyone. He was a football hero, and I would say he was a leader,' Jeffrey Pratt Sr. said. Pratt Jr. was a bright teen, but as a young adult, he fell into addiction. He reached out to his dad for help. 'He told me, 'Dad, how do you expect me to get sober in a house full of drug addicts?' So, he got an apartment in Crocker to start a new life,' Pratt Sr. said. On the morning of Jan. 4, 2022, Pratt's girlfriend said she found the 27-year-old dead inside their apartment bathroom. Two Crocker police officers responded. The mayor, who had recently fired the police chief and was the acting police chief at the time, was also there, taking pictures of the scene. Crocker police said they found drugs in the apartment and a needle mark on Pratt Jr.'s inner elbow. The coroner called it an overdose. FOX 2 News has reviewed the case, and the evidence is not so clear. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now 'It's a big failure,' former Crocker Police Chief Regina Utley Arrington said of the investigation. The death was seemingly ignored for months, until Chief Arrington came into the position. One day in May 2022, she got a call from Pratt Sr. 'In my heart of hearts, I think if this had been done like it should've been done, he wouldn't have so many questions that keep him up at night,' Arrington said. She is no longer with the police department or involved in this case. But she was working on it at the time. After talking to Pratt Sr., Arrington wrote in her supplement report that she could not find a file on this case. 'The reports weren't done, supplements weren't done, evidence wasn't tagged, it hadn't been sent to the lab. Nothing was tested. It was just starting from scratch on something that you weren't even there for initially,' she said. The Pratt family provided FOX 2 with the case file they obtained through the state's Sunshine Law. The earliest documented incident report of Pratt's death was dated May 11, four months after Pratt died. FOX 2's Chad Mira went to the police department for answers, but it was closed down. The Pulaski County Sheriff's Office took over policing the area earlier this month. But, any speculation about the death could be laid to rest with the coroner's toxicology report. 'My office wasn't equipped to handle blood draws and examinations, things to that extent, so we relied on the funeral homes to pull our blood samples,' Pulaski County coroner Roger Graves said. Graves said he requested a blood sample from the funeral home. But he wrote in his report narrative that when he went to collect the blood sample, the funeral home had lost it, even though he said an employee named Leo Kloeppel told him it was ready for pick-up. So FOX 2's Chad Mira went to the funeral home, but the door was locked. On the phone, someone with the funeral home said Kloeppel had not worked there for several years. FOX 2 found a breach of contract lawsuit that states Kloeppel was fired from the funeral home in November 2021, two months before Pratt died. When FOX 2 pointed that out to Graves, he looked into it. 'That's the number he gave me when I took office, come to find out the phone was not his, it actually belonged to the funeral home and it was for the on-call guy,' Graves said. FOX 2 took the case to retired Warren County Coroner Roger Mauzy to get another opinion. He said the blood sample is imperative. 'Without that, it's strictly speculation, and I wouldn't want to be responsible for that,' Mauzy said. But that was not the only problem he found with the case. FOX 2 showed him all of the photos the police took at the scene of the death. There were photos all over the apartment but only three pictures showed Pratt's body. Mauzy said, in his opinion, that is not enough. Graves showed FOX 2 that, as part of his investigation as coroner, he had taken his own, more thorough set of photos. He provided more information on how he came to his conclusion about the drug overdose. 'There were two capsules found there on the sink that were open. One of them had all of its contents gone. There was a spoon with some burnt residue in it as well and lying next to him was a needle and syringe with a clear liquid in it,' Graves said. In a written list of evidence in the police incident report, police say they recovered a silver tube of eight pills, a syringe, a spoon, pipe, and foil, all with residue and more. But several of the items do not have an evidence tag number and are not pictured in any photograph reviewed by FOX 2. The only evidence photographed in the case file is a single pill. The date of the photo is July 2022, six months after Pratt died. It appears to be the same pill that Crocker sent to the state crime lab for testing. According to a highway patrol report, the lab did not receive the pill until the end of July. It did test positive for fentanyl. But for Pratt Sr., that is not enough to prove it was in his son's system when he died. Now, three years later, his wounds are still fresh. 'I feel like I could get a phone call from him at any moment. That day will never happen again. A few things I'd like to say to him still,' Pratt Sr. said. He hopes a new investigation will finally provide him with more answers. 'There is no closure. I have no closure. I'd like to know how my son actually died,' Pratt Sr. said. The Missouri State Highway Patrol confirmed it has reopened the case. Due to the new investigation, the City of Crocker declined an interview. Due to a threat of litigation, the city's former mayor and acting police chief also declined an interview. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sheriff tells FOX 2 not to record in public place as we seek answers to rides for his children
ST. LOUIS – FOX 2's investigation into the St. Louis Sheriff's child transports has taken a twist, as we discovered the latest transport happening in an unmarked sheriff's car. Last month, FOX 2 showed you a uniformed sheriff's deputy picking up the sheriff's children from school in a marked government car. Attorney Bevis Schock told us it violates Missouri law. 'If you get something of value by virtue of your office, that's other than your salary, that's what's prohibited,' he said. We learned the sheriff continues having the same deputy pick up his children from school. The latest incident occurred on Truman Day, a Missouri holiday with the courts closed. This time, a sheriff's deputy was driving an unmarked car. Sheriff Alfred Montgomery, who is already under investigation by the FBI, has refused to talk about it. His attorney claimed in a written statement that the deputy is off duty during the rides. We had more questions, so a FOX 2 crew went to Tuesday's land tax sale to see if we could catch up with Montgomery. The sheriff approached and asked us to follow him away from the crowd, where we thought he would finally answer our questions. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now He did not. 'You have to stop violating the policies and rules at the courthouse, ok? I understand you don't have respect for me as the sheriff,' he said. 'So please, you can't video out here. You know that. You know better. You cannot video a land sale tax meeting. Please respect the office, thank you.' While chasing after the sheriff for a comment, we spotted Bevis Schock, the same civil rights attorney who originally weighed in on the child transportation issue. We asked him about our right to be here. 'Chris, I was walking by; you collared me. I understand you were told by the sheriff you could not videotape a tax sale. It's my instant legal opinion that is wrong,' Schock said. 'As we can see behind me, it's a very public event. It's open to any citizen to either bid or just attend and watch. To say that an event that's occurring in public can't be videotaped by the news is just simply false.' FOX 2 News will keep pressing for answers as questions are only mounting. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
