BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) - A former north-central Missouri attorney has died while serving a seven-year prison sentence for sexual molestation.
The Missouri Department of Corrections said Thomas Oswald, of Kirskville, died early Friday at the age of 87, although The Kirksville Daily Express (http://bit.ly/Hr0OX4) reports he was 86. The department said he died of apparent natural causes.
Oswald pleaded guilty in October 2009 to one felony count of statutory sodomy. He was incarcerated in a state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead around 1:35 a.m. Friday at a Jefferson City hospital.
A friend of Oswald, former Kirksville dentist Arnold Stephen Barber, was convicted last year of trying to bribe the parents of the teen Oswald was accused of molesting to stop them from cooperating with prosecutors. Barber is free on bond while he appeals.