Jury convicts Carthage man in death of retired professor

Kenton Cowgill

Police videos and blood evidence proved sufficient Wednesday to convict Kenton Cowgill of second-degree murder and three other felony counts in the death two years ago of a retired Joplin college professor.

Jurors returned four guilty verdicts at the conclusion of Cowgill's two-day trial in Jasper County Circuit Court, with Judge Dean Dankelson setting the 38-year-old Carthage man's sentencing hearing for Aug. 7.

In addition to the murder count, Cowgill was found guilty of driving under the influence of methamphetamine, resisting arrest by fleeing and trafficking in drugs.

Prosecutors called to the witness stand Wednesday several more officers who were involved in the attempted detention and pursuit of Cowgill on July 3, 2021, and the investigation of the ensuing three-vehicle crash in Duquesne that killed 66-year-old Robert McDermid, a former chairman of the psychology department at Missouri Southern State University.

Duquesne police Sgt. Brian Wenberg, the officer in closest pursuit of Cowgill eastbound on East Seventh Street, testified that the defendant was driving a Lexus at up to 80 mph as he wove around traffic, ran a red light at Duquesne Road and broadsided McDermid's northbound Toyota Prius.

Wenberg told jurors that as the two vehicles came to rest in the westbound lanes on the east side of the intersection after the collision, he spotted the passenger-side front door of the Lexus opening as if its driver was about to run. He accordingly drew his gun for his own safety and stepped around to the passenger side.

"He was basically on all fours just outside the car," Wenberg said of the defendant.

Police Officer Mackenzie Roach, who made the initial contact with Cowgill on Rex Avenue in Joplin, arrived at the crash scene, and Wenberg held the defendant at gunpoint as Roach placed him in handcuffs.

With the fleeing suspect detained, Wenberg went to check on the occupant of the Prius, whom the third officer to arrive at the scene had determined was pinned inside the wreckage, unresponsive and not breathing. McDermid eventually was extricated with the assistance of other first responders and transported to Mercy Hospital Joplin, where he was pronounced dead.

Ransom Ellis, deputy medical examiner for Jackson County, testified Tuesday that an autopsy found McDermid had suffered blunt force traumas, including fractures and ruptures.

Cowgill was taken to Freeman Hospital West for treatment of his injuries, and while there, a blood sample was drawn that proved negative for alcohol but positive for methamphetamine. The defendant's suspected use of meth, if he was impaired or not and if he was in possession of any meth at the time were issues in the trial.

A Dollar General shopping bag containing smaller bags of meth was found beneath the Lexus as the wrecked car was being towed away. Trenton Greene, a Jasper County Sheriff's Department detective, testified that he spotted the bag on the ground as the car was being loaded onto a wrecker. Greene picked it up, looked inside and saw what he suspected was meth.

Roach had testified Tuesday that there were drops of blood on the pavement outside the passenger side of the Lexus. The drops formed a trail from the vicinity of the rear tire where the shopping bag was discovered to the spot on the street where Wenberg found Cowgill down on all fours.

The prosecution had presented Roach's testimony regarding the blood trail as circumstantial evidence that Cowgill had tried to hide it there when he crawled out of the vehicle.

Defense attorney Austin Knoblock maintained there was no actual evidence of constructive possession on the part of his client, eliciting testimony that the Lexus actually belonged to someone else and suggesting that a state highway worker seen using a leaf blower in the vicinity of the crash might have played a role in how the bag turned up under the vehicle.

"The problem is they can't prove how it got there," he told the jury during closing arguments.

But Prosecutor Theresa Kenney put a clincher on the state's interpretation of whose meth it was by calling a DNA criminalist with the Missouri State Highway Patrol's crime lab to testify Wednesday that DNA in blood found on the shopping bag matched the DNA of the defendant, with just a 1 in 532.2 decillion chance of there being anyone else it could match. A decillion is represented by a 1 followed by 33 zeros.

During closing arguments, Kenney showed jurors for a second time the police body cam and dashboard videos of the attempted detention and pursuit of Cowgill, emphasizing how police had reason to detain him. He had shown signs to Roach of being impaired, and the officer had learned that he was driving while his license was revoked.

Cowgill then fled at a high speed that put others at risk of serious injury or death and ultimately ran a red light, broadsided McDermid's vehicle and killed him, she said. Kenney told jurors that was all the state needed to support its charge of murder. The prosecution did not need to prove that he intended to kill anyone, she said.

Knoblock maintained the state had failed to show any actual impairment of his client. Meth is a stimulant, but his client had been asleep in the vehicle when police first approached him, he argued.

"He had just been woken up," Knoblock told jurors. "Of course, his eyes were bloodshot and he didn't know where he was."

But Kenney reminded jurors of what a criminalist from the state crime lab's toxicology team had told them.

"Whether he's on a high or coming down, that meth is still in his system and impairing his judgment," Kenney said.

Kenton Cowgill

The felony murder trial of Kenton Cowgill began Tuesday with testimony that he was fleeing police and under the influence of methamphetamine w…

Jeff Lehr is an award-winning reporter for The Joplin Globe who covers the courts and crime beat. He can be reached at [email protected].

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