Family sues Bootheel city over 2006 murder-suicide

CAMPBELL, Mo. -- The city of Campbell, one of its police officers and the town's Dollar General convenience store are being sued by a Malden, Mo., family who lost their 18-year-old daughter in a murder-suicide in 2006.

A wrongful-death lawsuit was filed through the Dunklin County court system May 27 by attorneys for William Joseph and Carolyn Jeannine Flowers, parents of the late Kasi Leanne Flowers, who was gunned down while at work at the Dollar General Store in Campbell by a threatening ex-boyfriend carrying a loaded .22-caliber rifle. A wrongful-death lawsuit is an action brought by the next of kin or family members of a deceased victim in a personal injury case.

According to a statement provided in 2006 by Dunklin County Sheriff Bob Holder, about 6:30 p.m. Aug. 12, 2006, Billy Gene Meadows Jr., 22, of Campbell, entered Flowers' place of employment carrying a rifle, which he later used to kill his ex-girlfriend and then himself.

Members of Flowers' family, friends of the former couple and some Campbell residents say the city of Campbell and its law enforcement department had fair warning that something needed to be done to protect Flowers from her ex-boyfriend.

In the lawsuit, Flowers' family suggests that several times before the murder-suicide, law enforcement officials at Campbell and prosecutors in Dunklin County were advised that Meadows was stalking and harassing Flowers and threatening her life.

Messages left with representatives of Campbell's police department were not immediately returned.