Three former Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) emergency response team members remain jailed without bond this (Tuesday) morning. They’re charged with second degree murder for the December death of Jefferson City Correctional Center inmate Othel Moore Jr.
The medical examiner’s office says Moore died of positional asphyxiation.
Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson has also charged the three, 34-year-old Justin Leggins of Cadet, 31-year-old Jacob Case of Desloge, and 24-year-old Aaron Brown of Park Hills, with second degree assault. A fourth former CERT team member, 34-year-old Gregory Varner of Park Hills, is charged with felony murder and second degree assault and will appear in court on Wednesday July 3.
Prosecutor Thompson tells 939 the Eagle that Leggins, Case and Brown were all arraigned on Monday and remain jailed. Prosecutor Thompson has also charged former Jefferson City Correctional Center Sergeant Bryanne Bradshaw of Jefferson City with involuntary manslaughter. Thomsson says Bradshaw has been released on a $50,000 bond and will be back in court on July 30.
The incident happened during an early-morning December CERT team search for contraband in a housing unit. Prosecutor Thompson says Moore was pepper sprayed twice during the operation before being placed in a spit hood, leg wrap and restraint chair and transferred to a separate housing unit, where he was left in the hood, wrap and restraint chair for about 30 minutes. Prosecutor Thompson notes multiple witnesses say Moore told corrections officers that he could not breathe.
The Cole County Sheriff’s Department probable cause statement quotes Bradshaw as saying Moore was yelling and screaming and although she couldn’t understand what he was saying, he could have been saying he couldn’t breathe. Bradshaw also is quoted in court documents as saying that she knew the 38-year-old Moore from previous encounters and that she didn’t think he would be making up medical issues if that’s what he was trying to relay.
The medical examiner’s office has ruled Moore’s death as a homicide, with the cause of death as positional asphyxiation.