Farmer's death ruled a justifiable homicide

A Butler County jury unanimously decided last week the May 24 death of a Neelyville, Missouri, farmer was a justifiable homicide.

In a courtroom packed with family and friends of the deceased, Frank "Sid" Smody, 59, and Butler County Sgt. Brandon Lowe, the jury heard testimony from seven witnesses during the coroner's inquest convened by Butler County Coroner Jim Akers.

After hearing about 90 minutes of testimony, the five-man, one-woman jury began its deliberations at 2:45 p.m., returning with a verdict 30 minutes later.

As the inquest began, Akers told the jury Smody was pronounced dead at Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center at 2:28 a.m. May 24.

Dr. Russell Deidiker performed an autopsy May 27 at Mineral Area Regional Medical Center at Farmington, Missouri, Akers said.

Akers then read Deidiker's preliminary autopsy report, which said Smody suffered a gunshot wound to the left abdomen. Toxicology was negative, the report said.

Using aerial photographs, Akers had Kari Smody, daughter of the deceased, show the jury where her mobile home was on the family's property, as well as the location of her parents' home.

Sheds and grain bins sit between the two homes.

On the night of May 23, Kari Smody said, she was home with a friend, Kris Campbell, when she called the Butler County Sheriff's Department.

"There was some prowlers outside my home on the property. ... I felt like my life, like I was in danger," Smody said.

She confirmed she called her dad that night.

"I told my father that there were several prowlers on the property," she said. " ... I told him that I was scared ... because there was not just one. There were like four or five people out there, and I had no protection."

Kari Smody said she told her dad she had contacted the sheriff's department and asked him to bring his gun.

A deputy, whom Kari Smody didn't know by name, arrived about 30 minutes after her call. She told him about the prowlers.

"He asked if I would like to check it out, so we did a walk-around of the home," she said. No one was found, she said.

"As I'm standing there, they said that was a gunshot, and then there was another gunshot after that, and the officer immediately said: 'Get in the house, get in the house, get in the house,'" she said. "So, I ran and got in my house."

Kari Smody said she was unable to hear anything being said outside, and she did not know who had fired the shots.

While inside, she said, she heard five shots, which sounded like they had been fired from a handgun, and she called her dad.

"I knew he was out there somewhere, and it was so dark ... " she said. "I was freaking out, like concerned about him."

"At what point did you tell the deputy that your dad was out looking around the property?" Akers asked.

Smody said she told the deputy she had called her dad to let him know the sheriff's department was sending someone out, but "other than that, there was no other talk about it."

One of the jurors asked whether the deputy had his car's emergency lights on when he arrived.

"No, he did not," she said. " ... I wouldn't have been able to tell that it was even a sheriff's car until ... the glow from my porch light hit the side of the car when he opened the door. ... It reflected off the car."

When the shots were fired, Campbell was standing on the porch near the stairs, while she and the deputy were standing near the porch. "I had my back turned, and the deputy was standing right beside me," Kari Smody said.

Campbell said Kari Smody had been calling him for "a few days before, (the shooting) telling me that there had been people shining flashlights and stuff in her window. She had been hearing noises."

That night, he said, he called his friend, telling her he "would come out, stay the night with her, keep her company, just because she had been hearing that."

But when shots began to be fired and everyone ran for cover, the darkness caused confusion.

The sergeant identified himself and asked the shooter repeatedly to drop his gun, but the man kept approaching.

"He yelled back at me," said Lowe. "He said: 'I don't know who you are; you are on my property.'"

Lowe continued to identify himself and the assailant kept walking toward him. After a third try to get the man to drop his weapon, Lowe told him "if he did not drop the gun I was going to shoot him. ... He continued to walk.

"I then fired my first shot. ... In my mind, I fired five times, and that's what I told the (Missouri State) Highway Patrol."

It was determined that six shots were fired. Smody died of his injuries.