Jackson shooter, 17, dies in prison

Jonathan McClard, 17, convicted in November of shooting another teen at a Jackson car wash, was found dead in his cell Friday, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

McClard was pronounced dead just before 4 p.m. Friday at the Eastern Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, department spokesman Brian Hauswirth told the newspaper. The Bonne Terre prison is a facility where inmates stay briefly before being transferred. McClard died three days after his 17th birthday, when he reached the minimum age to join the adult population.

Hauswirth told the Post-Dispatch the state's inspector general's office was investigating McClard's death and an autopsy will be conducted by the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office.

Phone calls placed to the Department of Corrections Friday night by the Southeast Missourian were not returned.

McClard was scheduled to serve the bulk of his 30-year sentence in the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Mo. Last week, in an interview with the Southeast Missourian at the Northeastern Correctional Center for juveniles in Bowling Green, Mo., he had expressed fear about entering the adult prison population at Charleston.

"It's a C5 level, which is about the worst there is," McClard had said, using the term used for a maximum-security prison.

The Department of Corrections did not release any details of McClard's death, including whether McClard was alone in the cell.

McClard received the maximum 30-year sentence for luring Jeremy Voshage to the Shawnee Square Car Wash and shooting him in the spine July 10. McClard fired two more bullets, one into Voshage's groin and one into his ankle, loading another round into the .22-caliber rifle each time. He said he shot Voshage out of jealousy over a girl.

A surveillance camera captured McClard drinking a soda after shooting Voshage. McClard confessed to police at the scene. He said that he had taken cold medication and used marijuana before the crime.