CASS COUNTY, Mo. — Cass County prosecutors charged a Cleveland, Mo., man on Monday for his suspected involvement in the death of his another man over the weekend.
Prosecutors charged Jamie Murray, 28, with second-degree murder.
According to police, officers were dispatched to the 400 block of South 3rd Street Saturday around 11:30 p.m., in regards to an assault. When they arrived on the scene, they found two men suffering life-threatening injuries.
Jeffrey E. Denton, 44, of Cleveland, Mo., was taken to the hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Terry J. McIntire, 33, also of Cleveland was treated for serious injuries at different metro hospital. Cleveland, Mo., is about 45 miles south of Kansas City just across the Kansas/Missouri border.
According to a witness and police, Denton, his wife and two other people were walking north on 3rd Street after a barbecue with friends and family when a Jeep drove by them at a high rate of speed. They think he was going about 45 mph in a 20 mph zone.
One of the men with Denton said Denton yelled at the Jeep to ‘slow the f*** down.’
The witness says the Jeep stopped and says Murray got out of the car, asking ‘What the f*** did you say?’ The witness says Denton punched Murray in the face.
“He jumped out of the vehicle, had a problem and came around and acted like he was going to attack us and Jeff took the first initiative and hit him,” said Solomon Franco, who was with Denton.
The witness says the situation calmed and Murray got back in the Jeep and drove off.
“He was all apologetic and everything like that– went down the street and took off and left. A few minutes later he came tearing down the street, hoped out of the vehicle and hit Jeff in the head with some sort of club,” said Franco.
According to court documents, Murray returned with a weapon, which court documents called “a long club or bat” and began swinging it at Denton, striking him in the face. Denton’s wife said she thought the weapon was a golf club.
“He wasn’t breathing. I was doing CPR and I was doing everything I could to save him,” said Kerstin Denton, Denton’s wife.
The other victim, Terry McIntire who was in the car with the suspect, says he got out of the car when they returned to look for Murray’s glasses which had fallen off when Denton allegedly hit him. McIntire says when he got out of the car with a long flashlight he was immediately pushed off his feet and struck in the head numerous times with the flashlight.
Murray is currently in custody at the Cass County Jail with a $150,000 cash bond.
“My husband would have never done anything to hurt anybody. We we’re entertaining friends and just went for a walk,” Kerstin Denton said. ” Just a loving man, he had so many friends everybody loved him.”
