Missouri Archives – Hard Boiled News

Innocent Man Released After 17 Years as Lookalike Suspect is Discovered

June 12, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

KANSAS CITY, Kansas — A man was freed after spending 17 years in jail for a purse snatching he didn’t commit when authorities found out he had a dead lookalike with the same name who may have been responsible for the crime.

The eerie coincidence landed Richard Jones behind bars in 1999 for a 19-year stretch for the Kansas robbery in which the only evidence pinning him to the crime was the victim identifying him as the thief.

At the time, prosecutors and the witness didn’t know there was another man out there who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jones, shared his first name and also lived near where the crime occurred, while Jones lived across the state line in Kansas City, Missouri.

But when Jones’ lawyers caught wind of the other man, they showed the witness the other man’s picture and he admitted he could not tell the two men apart.

Last week, a judge agreed and tossed Jones’ conviction out.

While there was no evidence that the other man committed the crime — he denied any role during a hearing before the judge — the bizarre situation poked holes in the sole bit of evidence against Jones.

The judge ruled that the photo array that was used by police to show the robbery victim was improper as it included no one else who remotely looked like Jones.

“Everybody has a doppelganger,” Jones lawyer, Alice Craig told the Kansas City Star. “Luckily we found his.”

St. Louis Doctor Found Dead in Island Paradise

February 14, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Dr. John McGurk was found dead on the rocks near the Blue Horizon resort

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos — A Missouri doctor was found dead near his resort hotel in an island paradise in the Caribbean after having gone missing for several days, police said.

John McGurk, 32, an internal medicine specialist from St. Louis, was found on Friday on the rocks just above the shoreline near the Blue Horizon resort on Middle Caicos, the Royal Turks and Caicos police said.

The island chain lies just north of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

McGurk had checked into the hotel last Monday and was reported missing on Wednesday after hotel staff realized no one had seen him since he had arrived, police said.

Investigators believe McGurk, who worked at Missouri Baptist Medical Center, may have fallen while taking a hike near the hotel.

Authorities were initially unable to recover McGurk;s body because of where it had fallen and the tides. The U.S Coast Guard was called in to assist.

McGurk began practicing in 2014. He graduated from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and finished his residency in internal medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the Washington University School of Medicine.

Wife, Son-in-Law Charged in Slain KKK Imperial Wizard’s Killing

February 14, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Klan boss Frank Ancona’s body was found over the weekend after he’d been shot in the head

LEADWOOD, Missouri — The wife and son-in-law of a slain Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard have been charged with shooting him in the head and dumping his body in the woods, police say.

Frank Ancona’s body was discovered along the bank on the Big River in central Missouri on Saturday, a day after his car was found parked in the nearby Mark Twain National Forest.

Authorities said they believed the 51-year-old Ancona had been shot in his sleep because he had told his wife he wanted a divorce.

“It may have been a marital issue,” St. Francois County Prosecutor Jarrod Mahurin told the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Malissa Ancona, 44, and her son, Paul Jinkerson Jr., 24, were charged Monday with first-degree murder, armed criminal action, tampering with physical evidence and abandonment of a corpse.

Malissa Ancona (r) is believed to have helpedhe son, Paul Jinkerson kill her husband because he wanted a divorce

Detectives say Jinkerson shot his stepfather in the early morning hours on Thursday in his bedroom. Malissa Ancona then helped Jinkerson move her husband’s body and dump it near the Big River.

A search of the Ancona’s home revealed substantial blood evidence in the bedroom and a pile of clothes was found burned near where the Klan leader’s car had been left, a criminal affidavit said.

Ancona is the Imperial Wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights, a Missouri chapter of the KKK. He rose to national attention in 2014, when he said the protests in Ferguson, Missouri against the police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown had awoken a “sleeping giant” and threatened “lethal force” would be used to protect white people and police from “terrorists.”

Malissa Ancona told police he was last seen on Wednesday when he got a call from work asking him to make a delivery in another part of the state. But investigators later determined he had not been contacted by the company.

Police also found that a safe in the Anconas’ home had been broken into with a crowbar and its contents taken. Ancona’s collection of guns was also missing.

Missing KKK Imperial Wizard Found Dead in Missouri

February 12, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Klan boss Frank Ancona had warned that protests in Ferguson, Mo. had awoken “a sleeping giant”

LEADWOOD, Missouri — A Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard who disappeared last week has been found dead in Missouri, police said.

The body of 51-year-old Frank Ancona was discovered on the banks of the Big River in central Missouri a day after authorities found his car parked nearby. Investigators found evidence of “a burn pile,” near the car and officials were awaiting the results of an autopsy.

His wife, Malissa, told police he was last seen on Wednesday when he got a call from work asking him to make a delivery in another part of the state. But investigators later determined he had not been contacted by the company.

The Daily Journal newspaper reported that police found that a safe in Ancona’s home had been broken into with a crowbar and its contents taken and police say they do not suspect burglary.

Ancona’s collection of guns was also missing, but the gun he usually carried was left at home, which he relatives said was suspicious, the newspaper reported.

Ancona’s wife said that when her husband left, he said he wanted a divorce and had taken some belongings with him.

“Frank and I weren’t getting along too well,” Malissa told KFVS-TV. “We were working on our marriage. He told me when he got back he was filing for divorce and took a bag of clothes with him.”

Ikea Shoplifter Stuffs Frying Pan in Skin Tight Leggings, Fools No One

January 6, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff 6 Comments

ST. LOUIS — She had junk in her trunk and then some.

A cheeky St. Louis shoplifter tried to walk away from an Ikea with a large frying pan shoved down her skin-tight leggings.

Naturally, Sierra Coleman didn’t get far before store security caught up to her and attempted to detain her in the store parking lot, where the whole farcical episode was caught by a passerby’s cell phone video camera.

Despite the large pan sticking out of the back of her pants, the 28-year-old Coleman was resistant to the idea that she’d done anything wrong.

“It’s a misdemeanor,” Coleman yells. “Only 30 dollars!”

One of the clearly bemused security guards reminds Coleman: You have IKEA property in your pants.”

Sierra Coleman seriously underestimated the amount of room she had in her pants

Bystanders were also pretty amused by the spectacle, with one asking: “Is that a pot in the back of your pants?”

Matters became more tense when one of the guards accused Coleman of scratching a biting him. She was eventually arrested and charged with misdemeanor theft and assault, according to the Circuit Attorney of the City of St. Louis.

Grinch Stabs Frosty in Not So Merry Christmas Attack

December 11, 2016 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Cameras caught the assault on Frosty by a vandal

ST. LOUIS — The war on Christmas is real!

A late-night grinch ran into a Missouri man’s yard and maliciously stabbed an inflatable Frosty the Snowman yard ornament and the whole brutal assault was caught on tape.

Jeff Diggs says he was horrified to find Frosty severally wounded in what he said looked like a “mob hit style assault” just weeks before Christmas. Diggs’ security camera footage shows Frosty sink slowly to the ground as the air escapes out through the wound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxKzNwEPEB0

The footage shows a white male, possibly in his 20s, with a bandana covering his face, hop out of the passenger side of an older model dark colored two-door small size pickup truck,” before shanking the lawn ornament on its right side.

“Frosty received a total of 9 stitches from the stabbing. He is doing well and recovering from his injury,” Diggs wrote on a Go Fund Me page he set up to raise cash to a local children’s charity in Frosty’s honor.

“He insisted on going back to work immediately because he believes in the magic of the holiday season and hopes that all people will come together and learn to love and respect each other regardless of our differences!” Diggs wrote.

World’s Worst Wedding Photographer Charged in Sleazy Porn Scam

October 24, 2016 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Mario Ambrose Antoine, also known as ‘Mario Sixstring’ and ‘Mario Ferrari’

RAYMORE, Missouri — A sleazy Missouri wedding photographer has been indicted for duping dozens of women into having sex with him by making them think they were going to be paid for appearing in pornographic films.

Federal prosecutors say Mario Ambrose Antoine — who is also known as “Mario Sixstring” and “Mario Ferrari” — promised to pay women he met online tens of thousands of dollar to appear in adult films.

According to the indictment, the 33-year-old Antoine created online aliases in which he would promote himself as a talent manager, photographer or videographer who worked for fictitious companies with names like “Playboy Worldwide,” “Playboy Asia” and “Dash Agency.”

He told his victims that the films would appear only on websites overseas.

Starting in 2011, Antoine is alleged to have “auditioned” dozens of women in and around Kansas City for possible employment by having them have sex with him on camera.. He even went so far as to use phony tax forms and other documents to make the businesses look legitimate. He continued running the scam for four years.

When the women didn’t receive payment and complained, Antoine is alleged to have sent sexually explicit images to their employers and boyfriends. In some cases he blackmailed his victims by saying they could either pay him thousands in cash or have sex with him or else he would send pictures to their loved ones.

Antoine allegedly preyed on his victims online by posing as “Nikki,” and complimenting them on their looks and asking if they were interested in modeling. Nikki would bring up adult modeling and tell the women they could make tens of thousands of dollars posing for pictures and videos that would only be available on private websites in other countries.

Nikki would then direct the women to a house in Raymore, Mo. where they would meet with Antoine to film sex scenes.

Prosecutors say that in 2015, Antoine studied up on the law surrounding what he was doing, conducting Google searches for “rape by deception,” “rape by deception kansas,” and “illegal to trick girls into sleeping with you,” and viewed websites and law journals.

Antoine was charged with 12 counts of wire fraud, two counts of cyberstalking, two counts of online enticement and other charges. While dozens of women may have fallen prey to Antoine’s scam, the charges relate to six different women he duped.

Much of what Antoine is charged with occurred while he was out on probation from a 2013 state conviction related to a wedding photography business he ran. He was found guilty of scamming brides by taking their cash to take pictures at their weddings but not showing up and then refusing to give the money back.

Report: Mizzou Frat Trained Pledges How to Use Date Rape Drugs

October 14, 2016 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Delta Upsilon’s house at the University of Missouri

COLUMBIA, Missouri — A scandal-plagued fraternity at the University of Missouri has been investigated for allegedly handing pledges date rape drugs and teaching them how to use them.

The troubling allegation against the Delta Upsilon fraternity comes a month after the Greek organization was suspended on campus following an episode in which some of its members were accused of yelling racial slurs at black students.

That has led other students to come forward to the school’s Civil Rights and Title IX office to report various accounts over the past 15 months of underage drinking, hazing rituals and — most alarmingly — the alleged use of date rape drugs.

“Active members of delta upsilon fraternity allegedly provided each new member with three pills and instructed them to drug women for the purpose of incapacitating them prior to engaging in sexual activity. it has been alleged that new members are required to engage in such conduct in order to complete the initiation process,” read documents obtained by the Columbia Daily Tribune.

The documents contain reports from police and the school’s department of student life, including claims from women who believed they were drugged. In one account, a woman who was discovered without pants in a residence hall with feces smeared on the wall near her, said she had been drinking at Delta Upsilon. But her friends said she had been acting strangely and believed she may have been drugged.

Delta Upsilon’s national office called the allegations about the use of date rape drugs”deeply concerning but said they were “unsubstantiated.” It noted that no formal charges have been brought against the chapter or that no reports of sexual assault had surfaced.

“Such rumors are disgusting and egregious,” the national office said in a statement.

The group said the only active investigations against the chapter revolve around the late September incident in which racial slurs were used and earlier alcohol violations that involved two other fraternities. “Delta Upsilon is working closely with the university to investigate these alleged incidents,” the statement read.