Page 13 - IAV Digital Magazine #589

Willow Springs Man Staged Farm Accident, Paid Someone To Cut Off His Feet
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
By Ryan Collingwood Spri ngfield News- Leader
WEST PLAINS— In Torey Thompson's 20 years of law enforcement, the Howell County Sheriff's Office lieutenant has examined his share of bizarre incidents.
When a man appeared to try and cash in on an insurance policy by staging a
bloody farm equipment acci- dent, it became the strangest case of his career.
Would-be fraud and gruesome scenes are part and parcel of Thompson's job, but the combina- tion of those cir- cumstances is odd. The details made it odder.
In November, the Howell County Sheriff's Office sent out a rela-
tively vague press release to local media about a sit- uation involving a man in Willow Springs who had lost his feet in an apparent "staged incident" with a brush hog, a rotary mower often attached to a tractor.
Lost was a literal term, as the sev- ered feet could not be found by responding medics and law enforcement offi- cers. No other
details were pro- vided amid the active investiga- tion.
The case was recently closed. Thompson shared details with the News-Leader on Wednesday about the event that piqued much of the south cen-
tral Missouri county's curiosity.
"It was a poorly executed plan," Thompson said. "I've never seen anything quite like it."
When the call came in to emer- gency respon- ders, it was described as involving a man whose feet were severed while brush-hogging. But Thompson said it was quickly apparent the inci- dent was staged.
The feet were freshly severed — that much was true, according to Thompson, who said the man was inhis60sanda known para- plegic in his lower extremities. Autho rities were imme-
diately curious about the tourni- quets on his legs and who put them there in the immediate after- math of the alleged accident.
The man, whom the News-Leader is not naming because he was not criminally charged, appar- ently had some help.
Thompson said that a man from Florida made the trip to the small Ozarks town to cut off the man's legs with a hatch- et, executing an alleged plan to commit insurance fraud.
The wounds were not very convinc- ing, the lieutenant said, with cuts that were much too clean to have been done by a brush hog.
"If it was done by a brush hog, it would have been a bloody, gory mess," Thompson said. "I've seen those types of accidents before. This wasn't like that."
As the investiga- tion continued, Thompson said, investigators determined the man was attempt- ing to get money from an insurance claim. Since he never formally filed the false claim, Howell County prosecu- tors did not press charges.
Annoyed by the resources it wast- ed on this situa- tion, the sheriff's office considered pursuing criminal charges of filing a false police/EMS report, Thompson said, but the man was so
severely injured from the incident that it would have been an arduous process to have him in jail. He had a lengthy stay at a local hospital.
And where did his feet end up?
"A couple days after, we got a call that a relative found them in a bucket obscured by tires, so we went and got them," Thompson said.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine