Suspect in standoff with police enters not guilty plea

BURGLARY WITH HOSTAGE THREAT

By Heather Kronmueller ~ Southeast Missourian

JACKSON, Mo. -- Dax Justin May will stand trial on at least three of five charges stemming from a 7-1/2 hour armed standoff with Cape Girardeau police last month, a judge ruled after a preliminary hearing Thursday.

Circuit Judge Gary Kamp said he will rule on two other charges after lawyers submit additional information.

Prosecutors charged May with assault of a law enforcement officer in the first degree, assault in the second degree, armed criminal action, property damage in the first degree and burglary in the first degree.

The property damage and burglary counts are at issue. May pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Before the hearing at the county courthouse in Jackson began, May chatted with his grandmother and girlfriend.

"You're the most beautiful thing I've seen in two weeks," he said as he smiled and pointed to his girlfriend. He is being held in the Cape Girardeau County Jail on $500,000 bond.

Throughout the hearing May sat quietly and motionless as he listened to three Cape Girardeau police officers and two eyewitnesses recall the events of the standoff.

Randy Zimmerman was the first police officer to respond to the scene May 13. He recounted that when he arrived at the mobile home May had broken into at Pinewood Mobile Home Park on West End Boulevard, he heard a banging noise coming from inside.

Hostage threat

He recalled how he tried to make contact with May from the front porch of the home, but said the only response he got was a screamed threat: If Zimmerman didn't get off the porch, May would blow his head off.

"He said he had three hostages with him, and he was going to count to five and shoot one of them," Zimmerman said. "He got to three and he blew a hole in the front door."

No hostages were found in the home.

Capt. Carl Kinnison testified that several shots were fired by May from inside the mobile home. One whizzed over officer Brent Steger's head and traveled through two walls of a neighboring mobile home before it became lodged in the back of a refrigerator in a third home.

When the bullet passed through the neighboring home, it sent glass, metal and aluminum flying through the air. A small fragment struck Kinnison in the neck. He told the court he went to the hospital to have the piece examined, but x-ray machines could not show what type of debris it was because of it was too small.

When he went to a plastic surgeon to have the piece removed, he said the doctor discovered it was too deep into his muscle, so it was not removed.

Kinnison was the only person injured in the standoff.

When brothers Mitchell N. McElroy and Ronald D. Barnes, who own the home May broke into, gave their accounts of the night, May's attorney, Bryan Keller, asked them to describe the damage done to their home.

McElroy said everything from light sockets to sheet rock to an air hockey table was destroyed.

After McElroy's and Barnes' testimonies, Keller argued the prosecution's case for the property damage and burglary charges.

"The prosecution failed to show that more than $750 worth of damage was done," Keller said.

He said the prosecution also failed to give evidence that May intended to steal anything from the mobile home.

Assistant prosecuting attorney Ian Sutherland referred to Missouri case law, saying it could be presumed the defendant broke into the home to steal something.

In response, Kamp told the two sides to provide additional information on the property damage and burglary charges within a week. May's trial is set for June 17.

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

335-6611 extension 128