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June 30, 2024 |  By: Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

Missouri corrections officers charged with murder in death of inmate in restraints

prison cell

By Rudi Keller - Missouri Independent

Four former Missouri correctional officers face murder charges and a fifth is charged with involuntary manslaughter for the December death of a man incarcerated at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.

Othel Moore, 38, was pepper-sprayed in the face multiple times, had his face improperly covered by a hood that blocked his nose and mouth and left unattended in a cell for more than 30 minutes, documents filed Friday in Cole County Circuit Court state.

Moore, who suffered from asthma, screamed at officers that he could not breathe as he was being transported to the cell, the documents state. He died on the morning of Dec. 8.

Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson charged Justin Leggins, 34, of Cadet, Jacob Case, 31, of Desloge, and Aaron Brown, 24, and Gregory Varner, 34, both of Park Hills, with second degree assault and second degree murder.

Thompson charged Bryanne Bradshaw, 25, of Jefferson City with involuntary manslaughter in the second degree.

Leggins was hired by the department in 2022, according to information on the Missouri Accountability Portal. Case worked for the department in 2014 and 2015 and returned in 2020. Brown was hired in 2021. Varner worked for the department from 2014 to 2016 and returned in 2019. Bradshaw started in 2018.

All five had been arrested or surrendered to authorities by Friday afternoon, Thompson said.

No information was available indicating whether the officers have hired attorneys.

Four corrections officers were fired in March during the investigation of Moore’s death. The warden of the Jefferson City Correctional Center was terminated as an employee of the department earlier this month. 

The autopsy of Moore ruled his death was due to “positional asphyxiation” and the death was determined to be a homicide, documents filed with the case state.

“The sheriff’s department did a very thorough investigation and when we set down and reviewed all the evidence available, that is what led us to those charges,” Thompson said in an interview with The Independent.

The charges, highly unusual in an inmate death case, were first reported by the Associated Press. Thompson said he has some cases of inmate-on-inmate violence pending, but no other cases involving correctional officers assaulting inmates.

“Right now we have two offender-on-offender homicides, and we have had those in the past as well,” Thompson said.

In a press release, Thompson said Moore’s death was linked to a Corrections Emergency Response Team operation to sweep one of the housing units for contraband. 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 approximately 30 minutes. 

The probable cause statements for each of the five describe their role in Moore’s death.

Leggins was present outside Moore’s cell during the operation. Moore spoke to another inmate and Leggins told him to remain silent. 

“The victim looked back over his shoulder without moving any other part of his body and asked the suspect why he had to be quiet,” Sgt. Greg Henson of the Cole County Sheriff’s Department wrote in the probable cause statement on Leggin’s charges. “lt was at this point Leggins raised a ‘fogger’ canister of pepper spray and deployed it from a very close distance into the face of the victim.”

The spraying violated department policies that the inmate had to be a danger to the officer or other inmates, Henson wrote. 

“This unwarranted reckless behavior inflicted undue suffering and pain on the victim,” Henson wrote.

Case pepper sprayed Moore in the face as he lay on the ground.

“During the initial interview Case stated he pepper sprayed the victim in the face while he was on the ground at the top of the staircase for not following directives to stop resisting,” Det. Aaron Roberts of the sheriff’s office wrote in the court documents.

Brown placed the mask on Moore’s face, Deputy Merideth Freeeman wrote in his probable cause statement. He claimed Moore was spitting at corrections officers, which other officers denied.

“Brown placed the spit mask on the victim’s head without allowing him the opportunity to decontaminate from the pepper spray even though the victim was fully restrained and cooperative at the time,” Freeman wrote, noting that he placed it improperly, blocking Moore’s nose and mouth.

Varner supervised the placement of Moore into a restraint device while masked.

“During my interview with Varner, he confirms that by the time the victim reached the bottom level after being sprayed multiple times, he was yelling that he couldn’t breathe, and that the victim was saying he had asthma,” Henson wrote in a probable cause statement.

Bradshaw was the highest ranking officer in the unit where Moore was taken in restraint. When he arrived at about 7:50 a.m. that morning, he was in distress.
“Sgt. Bradshaw stated that when Moore arrived he was yelling and screaming and although she said she couldn’t understand what he was saying, she said he could have been saying he couldn’t breathe or was in distress,” Henson wrote. “Additionally, Bradshaw said she knew Moore from previous encounters, and didn’t think he would be making up medical issues if that’s what he was trying to relay when yelling.”

Moore was placed in a locked room, restrained and masked. He was not checked on until he was unresponsive about 8:20 a.m. that day.

Prison reform activist Michelle Smith had not heard about the charges when contacted Friday.

“The fact that they’ve absolutely been charged, yes, that’s amazing,” Smith said. “I appreciate it. I think that it is necessary, and you know, it will serve to get the information out to the public.”

Smith organized a vigil in January to highlight the growing number of deaths among inmates. Moore’s death was one of 135 in Missouri’s state prisons in 2023, according to Missouri Prison Reform . The number of deaths have been rising even as prison populations fall.

From 2012 to 2014, department data shows, there was an average of 31,442 incarcerated people in state prisons. Deaths averaged 89 per year. Over the period 2020 through 2022, with an average of 23,409 incarcerated people in state prisons, deaths averaged 122 per year.

Many of the deaths are natural, but they also include increasing numbers of overdose deaths.

The Moore investigation should not end with the criminal charges, Smith said. The way prisoners who told his family about his death were treated needs to be addressed as well, she said.

“The person who called the sister and told her he was killed, they put him in the hole,” Smith said. “They retaliated against several men and put them in the hole who were talking about it.”