Dixon evidence room messes up Osage County cases

Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon is interviewed in early 2015 outside the Cole County Courthouse after a hearing. In the background is Chief Deputy Ron Dishman, who served briefly as sheriff after Dixon resigned.
Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon is interviewed in early 2015 outside the Cole County Courthouse after a hearing. In the background is Chief Deputy Ron Dishman, who served briefly as sheriff after Dixon resigned.

Don't expect any charges to be filed after problems were reported this summer with the way former Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon and his staff handled his office's evidence in criminal cases.

"There is not sufficient evidence to be able to pursue criminal charges on any particular individual," Prosecutor Amanda Grellner told the News Tribune Friday. "Unfortunately, there were too many individuals who had access to the evidence room and not sufficient record keeping to determine who was responsible for these actions."

That "evidence vault is in complete disarray," Deputy Jason Comstock told interim Sheriff Carl Fowler in early August, shortly after Fowler took over the department's operations.

Fowler asked the Missouri Highway Patrol on Aug. 17 to "conduct an investigation into the potential theft, mishandling and missing evidence/property" from the evidence room "involving former and current members of the Osage County Sheriff's Office."

Fowler told Patrol Superintendent Brett Johnson that, after seeing it, "I immediately sealed the evidence vault, allowing no entry under any circumstances, including myself."

Fowler told the trooper assigned to the investigation, Kyle A. Seabaugh of the Drug and Crime Control division, "Since I walked in Aug. 5, nothing has come in or out of that door."

Comstock's letter to Fowler, Fowler's letter to Johnson and Seabaugh's reports were included in a package of items the Patrol provided the News Tribune after a Sunshine Law request was made for a copy of the Patrol's investigation report.

The package also included edited copies of two interviews Seabaugh conducted as part of the investigation, then wrote reports about.

Dixon - elected as Osage County's sheriff in 2012 to succeed Fowler, who had retired - resigned the office in May, as he faced a Boone County felony charge of unlawful use of a weapon at a Hartsburg bar while he was intoxicated and socializing with friends.

At the same time, Dixon also faced a complaint that being drunk and in that bar violated his probation in a St. Louis County harassment conviction case because the conditions of his probation included prohibitions from consuming alcohol or being in a bar unless he was doing law enforcement work.

The Boone County felony charge last week was reduced to a misdemeanor, and his preliminary hearing scheduled for Friday was canceled to give his attorneys and the prosecutor's office more time for negotiations.

His next court date in Columbia is a status hearing on Dec. 6.

Then-Deputy Vernon McKague told Seabaugh, as Dixon was leaving office, Dixon had McKague and Deputy Patrick Boatmen join him in the evidence room.

McKague told Seabaugh: "I remember I was pissed.

"I was behind on paperwork, and I remember he called me in to do something that I thought didn't make sense."

When McKague reached the vault, he reported Dixon and Boatmen already were in the room, cleaning items off the shelves.

"They had totes lined up on the floor with dates on them," he said, explaining Dixon would remove an item from the shelf, hand it to one of the others and have them place the evidence in a tote based on the year the evidence had been collected.

When Dixon wasn't certain about a piece of evidence, McKague said, "On two or three occasions, he had me check on things that were not dated," using Case.net, the state court system's online docket reporting system.

During the two- or three-hour period they were in the evidence room, McKague reported Dixon "opened several (evidence) bags, trying to determine what they were. Anything that was marked properly was not opened."

But, he added, "most were unmarked."

Fowler told Seabaugh he didn't know if any of evidence bags in the vault had "reports to accompany the items of evidence" or what items, if any, had been taken from the room.

While Dixon was serving as Osage County's sheriff, he had named Lt. Ron Dishman as the evidence technician, and in the 2015 business year, Dishman started a log to keep track of evidence.

When Dishman became sheriff after Dixon's resignation on May 26, Dishman named Comstock as the evidence technician.

Dishman resigned in August, after it was determined he lived in Phelps County - not Osage County as state law requires for the county sheriff - and former Sheriff Fowler was tabbed to fill the vacancy.

Comstock's August letter to Fowler reported Dishman had told Comstock the evidence log information "did not accurately reflect what was currently in the vault from previous years" before 2015.

Also, Comstock told Fowler: "Dishman advised me several things were missing from the evidence vault (and) explained to me there was supposed to be a substantial amount of money in the vault that was unaccounted for in the thousands of dollars."

Comstock told Fowler he could "not verify the accuracy" of that information or of a reported conversation between Dishman and Reserve Officer (and Acting Lt.) Christopher Wolfe "of several other items that were missing from the vault."

Seabaugh reported when he first looked inside the Osage County sheriff's evidence vault on Aug. 29: "I observed numerous bags of evidence that were sealed with evidence tape, but other areas of the (same) bags were torn open. And the contents of the bags were lying next to it.

"I also observed numerous unsealed bags containing wallets, cellular telephones and illegal narcotics lying on a table."

And a weapon "with no evidence tag or case number associated with it," Seabaugh reported.

Fowler told the Patrol's investigator he didn't know what Dixon's evidence policy and procedure had included.

McKague told Seabaugh when McKague joined the sheriff's office in 2014, after working a year in the Linn police department, "I never was presented a policy and procedure manual."

McKague said evidence-handling procedures had included an officer placing evidence in an unsecured desk drawer until the evidence officer collected it.

Seabaugh told McKague there was "a bunch of other things to work through" in the investigation Fowler requested. But when the trooper told Grellner on Sept. 2 what he'd found so far, including "the security of the room had been compromised, and the integrity of the items inside the room could not be verified," Seabaugh reported Grellner asked him to "discontinue any further investigative steps."

And 12 days later, Grellner announced she would dismiss some cases and not pursue others because of the problems confirmed by the Patrol's probe.

Comstock reported to Fowler and Grellner confirmed in her Sept. 14 announcement, multiple people had access to the evidence room, and the door was left open and unattended on a number of occasions, creating more questions about the chain of custody and the value of the evidence in criminal cases.

No one has reported yet on the total number of cases affected by the problem, although Grellner estimated almost two months ago it could number "100 or better."

Most of the cases involved drug matters, and no homicide cases were affected, she said in September.

Dixon didn't file for a second term as sheriff, and Fowler agreed to serve as interim sheriff only until the winner of Tuesday's general election is determined and the votes certified.