Region digest 08/30/03

Cape police chief garners association's top award

Cape Girardeau police chief Steve Strong was named Friday as the recipient of the Missouri Police Chiefs' Association's 2003 Donald "Red" Loehr Outstanding Chief of the Year.

The award is presented to a chief who has demonstrated dedication and commitment to enhancing the law enforcement profession and service to ensuring the safety of the citizens of his community.

Strong was nominated by Cape Girardeau interim city manager Doug Leslie. He will be presented the award Sept. 23 at the association's 50th anniversary awards banquet at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Jefferson City.

Autopsy shows Dexter woman was strangled

FRISCO, Mo. -- Although a Dexter, Mo., woman who was found dead lying in a bean field was apparently stabbed several times, an autopsy showed she died from strangulation.

The woman has been identified as Lisa Lynn Ayers, 45.

Authorities report her cause of death was determined to be strangulation during an autopsy performed Thursday afternoon by Dr. Michael Zaricor at Mineral Area Hospital in Farmington.

Stoddard County chief deputy Rick Cook said officers "are combing an area where we think the weapon was disposed of." That area, according to Cook, is near where Ayers' body was found Wednesday night behind the Hopewell General Baptist Church, southeast of Frisco.

Randy L. Jones, 32, of Dexter has been charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. He remains in the Stoddard County Jail on $750,000 bond. His arraignment is scheduled for Thursday.

Three leg bones found on steps of mausoleum

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- A cemetery worker found three leg bones on the steps of a mausoleum in suburban Kansas City.

The human male bones, likely a tibia, fibula and femur, were wrapped in a black, hand-sewn skirt. The bones and skirt probably date to the 1930s, said Independence police spokesman Bill Pross.

Pross said there was no sign the mausoleum had been disturbed when the bones were found Wednesday in Independence. The mausoleum's most recent burial was 1938. Foul play is not suspected, he said.

Battlefield gets federal money for restoration

NEWTONIA, Mo. -- A Civil War battlefield in southwest Missouri has received federal money to help with a preservation project.

U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Strafford, planned to deliver a check Friday for $146,050 in matching funds for a local group's purchase last year of the Ritchey Mansion and 20 acres surrounding the building.

Blunt, who has taught Civil War history to high school and college students and is an avid reader on the subject, helped secure the grant from the National Park Service.

The first Civil War battle of Newtonia was fought Sept. 30, 1862. It involved some 8,000 troops and saw regimental American Indian units fight each other, perhaps for the first time in the Civil War, Blunt said. Another battle was fought two years later.

-- From staff, wire reports