Severed-arm case stalls in mistrial

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. - A mistrial was declared Wednesday night for a Scott City woman accused of endangering the lives of three children for leading them under a train, which severed her daughter's arm as it began moving.

Following nearly five and a half hours of deliberations, the six-man, six-woman jury was "hopelessly deadlocked" in the case against Glenda Ross, 34, charged with three counts child endangerment.

Circuit Court Judge Mark Richardson, who oversaw the daylong trial in Butler County on a change of venue, declared a mistrial in the case when the jurors failed to reach a verdict.

A future court date for Ross was not immediately set.

Scott County assistant prosecuting attorney Dana Weis said it was clear from several of the notes the jury passed down that they worked hard on the case, despite not reaching a verdict.

"It's a difficult issue they had to decide," said defense attorney Jason Tilley.

On Oct. 30, the arm of Ross' 8-year-old daughter, Mikayla Morrow, was severed by a train that began moving as she crawled under it near State Street in Scott City.

According to Ross, she told her 12-year-old daughter, Mikayla, and one of their friends to go under a coupling connecting two train cars to reach the other side. At the time they began to cross, the train was not moving. Neither Ross, who also crossed beneath the coupling, nor the other two girls were injured.

Weis accused Ross of knowingly endangering the girls' lives by leading them under the train. But Ross' defense attorneys said the defendant did not know the train, which sat still for upwards of 20 to 30 minutes, would begin moving.

"There's not one shred of evidence that said she knew that train was ready to move," said Jacob Zimmerman, an attorney with the public defender's office. "She had no idea this was a live train."

During closing arguments, Weis said it only mattered that Ross knew trains were dangerous and regularly passed through the area for her to be guilty.

The day of the accident began when Ross, her boyfriend and the three children went for a walk from the home of the defendant's father, 906 Second Street East. Ross, who lived with her father, wanted to look at a trailer for rent on Main Street.

When they reached the Second Street overpass, which travels above the train tracks, Ross testified the girls wanted to play near an old school house. Between 20 and 30 minutes later, the group began walking toward the rental trailer located past the railroad tracks.

Several train cars had been sitting on the northern half of a pair of railroad tracks during that time. While Ross' boyfriend suggested walking back to the overpass, the defendant testified she suggested going over the tracks between two box cars.

Mikayla and her friend, Ashley VanHoutin, 11, testified during the trial that Ross told the girls to go beneath the train.

"Why'd you go under the train?" Weis asked Mikayla. "Because my mom told me," Mikayla said. The daughter added she told her mother twice that she did not want to pass beneath the train coupling.

Ashley, who went under the train as well, said she was scared and would not be following her parents' rules if she passed underneath.

"I know if I did, then I would probably be in trouble," she said.

Both girls testified that her mother's boyfriend passed over the coupling first, and then Ross went under, followed by the girls, the last being Mikayla.

When Ross testified, she denied demanding the children go beneath the coupling and said she and the girls went under together.

"To my knowledge, we went at the same time," she said.

"Yet some how it ends up Mikayla is the last one to go through," Weis said.

Scott City police Sgt. Joey Hahn, who investigated the accident, said the school house the girls were playing at was closer to the Second Street overpass than State Street. The site of the accident at State Street was about 365 feet from the overpass, which could be reached in about a minute and a half from the school house by walking, he said.

Ross said she did not lead the children to the overpass because Mikayla had recently twisted her ankle and had asthma. Due to broken glass near the tracks at the end of the train, Ross testified she did not want to have the children walk around the five or six cars of the train.

When asked by Weis if she believe believed at the time going under the coupling was safer than traveling around by the broken glass, Ross, clutching a tissue and dabbing her teary eyes, softly said, "Yes."

Ross said she had often seen train cars sitting still on the tracks before, sometimes for a whole day. She added that on the day of the accident, she did not see a train engine or caboose attached to the cars, but admitted she never walked down to check.

If she had known the train was about to move, Ross said she never would have gone under or led the children beneath the train.

Scott City police officer Gina Cook, one of the first officers to respond to the scene, testified that no lone box cars without an engine sit on the pair of tracks Ross and the children crossed.

There would be, according to Cook, trains that stop shortly on the tracks to allow another train in an opposite direction to get by from a single lane track ahead.

"It's a daily occurrence," Cook said of trains stopping for one another on the tracks. She added between 65 and 70 trains pass through the area every day.

According to Hahn, the only tracks where box cars sit for up to a day without a locomotive attached was just south of Main Street, a little north of where the accident occurred.

But Zimmerman said that the officers' knowledge of the train yard should not be applied to his client.

"One train track is the next train track to her," he said in closing arguments.

Zimmerman cited Ross' testimony that she heard no whistle or horn from the train, further indicating the defendant did not know the train was about to move and endanger the children.

"She made a dumb mistake," he said. "But it wasn't a crime."

But Weis blasted such an idea, stating that leading the children under the coupling was the crime for which Ross was charged, and absolved the train operators of any possible error.

"Some how we need a conductor to tell adults not to tell children to crawl under a train?" she asked.

kmorrison@semissourian.com 335-6611, extension 127