It could have been a scene out of the 1938 movie “Jesse James” that was filmed here, but it wasn’t.
Just before the start of an accused cattle rustler’s trial, the defendant’s elderly father threatened to kill the judge.
The trial for Holder P. Crow, 44, of Garfield, Ark., began Thursday in McDonald County Associate Circuit Court Judge John LePage’s courtroom. Holder and two others were arrested last September and charged with 11 counts of cattle theft and four counts of animal abuse.
However, on Wednesday, McDonald County deputies arrested Holder’s 79-year-old father, Arthur P. Crow of Pineville after he allegedly threatened to kill LePage.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed by Deputy William Travis Horn, the older Crow reportedly phoned the Springfield Metro Bar Assocation, telling Daniel Clay, an attorney there, “that Judge LePage needed to die, that he had the means to do it, and was going to take the matter into his own hands.”
Arthur Crow is currently being held in the McDonald County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond. He was charged with tampering with a judicial proceeding, a Class C felony punishable by up to seven years in prison, if a conviction is reached.
Holder Crow, along with Ricky K. Obenshain, 34, of Hinesville, Ark., and Stephanie Weston, 36, of Pea Ridge, were arrested Sept. 8 after a motorist traveling north on U.S. 71 spotted what appeared to be a cow’s leg dragged beneath a trailer as it was pulled north on the highway. Shortly afterward, troopers with the Missouri State Highway Patrol stopped a 1986 Ford pickup and the trailer near Route B. Inside the trailer, troopers found 11 head of cattle with the leg of one cow sticking through a hole in the floor and dragging on the roadway. Because of injuries, four of the cattle had to be destroyed at a local veterinarian’s office, a highway patrol spokesman said.
It was later determined the cattle had been taken from southern McDonald County.
Holder’s trial is expected to conclude today.
In January, Obenshain pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing more than $500, but less than $25,000 and animal abuse. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. A jury trial has been set for June 29 for Weston.
