November 18, 2009
If the tales they told police are true, a group of children in rural Missouri grew up in a house of horror, where some were raped by relatives, then told to write down their memories in little glass jars and bury them in the ground.
Two decades later though, as authorities work to piece together what happened, there’s no evidence the jars have been found and other relatives say police have offered little evidence to support their accusations.
Burrell Mohler snr, 77, and his four adult sons appeared in court in western Missouri on Tuesday where they were charged with additional sex crimes, including rape and sodomy. A sixth member of the family, Darrel Wayne Mohler, was later charged with two counts of child rape.
And in a bizarre twist, a search warrant claims one of the suspects forced their victims to help kill and bury a man.
"These fellas have all had respectable jobs, and for this to come up so many years later …" Ron Gamble, a relative of the accused family members said after Tuesday’s hearing.
"In this country, you’re innocent until proven guilty. Have they found any evidence? I haven’t heard of any."
Since authorities began their search of the Mohlers’ former rural property outside Bates City on November 10, the case has moved nearly every day to a new and sometimes darker place.
One early court record detailed allegations of rape that included claims the children were assaulted with sharp objects and one girl was forced to have sexual contact with a dog.
As crews began their search for evidence, Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh said he believed they may find a body or bodies and buried glass jars with notes written by children who may have documented sexual abuse.
The children were told to write down bad memories and bury them there and "the memories would go away", said Sergeant Collin Stosberg of the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Even more shocking claims lay ahead.
A search warrant, filed on November 9 but released to The Associated Press on Tuesday, stated three of the alleged children observed "several murders" and were forced to help kill and bury a man in April 1988.
The warrant said one of the accused, Burrell E. Mohler jnr, and the children followed a large man from an Independence shopping centre to his home.
They parked outside, then the children lured the man over to their car by telling him that their father was having a heart attack.
When the man leaned over to help, Mohler jnr allegedly "wrapped his arms around the victim’s neck" and subdued him, the warrant said.
Mohler jnr then drove the man to his father’s property in Bates City. There, Mohler gave knives to the children and ordered them to attack the man and stab him, the warrant said.
One of the children then jumped on the man’s back and stabbed him, but it was a stab wound from the adult that actually killed the victim, according to the warrant. The children were then forced to help dig a grave for the man and bury him.
But the warrant offers no details about the stabbing victim or why he was targeted.
Independence police say their department had no information about a person disappearing in April 1988 after driving away from an Independence mall. Nothing in the warrant suggests where the man lived.
The Highway Patrol’s online "missing adults" website lists only one active case from 1988, involving a man reported missing on December 11 of that year from the eastern Missouri town of Union, about 320 kilometres to the east.
Authorities also have not provided additional details about the alleged stabbing and have declined to say what has been found on the property.
Authorities said they are taking all the accusations seriously, but they insist their focus is on the sexual abuse case and refuse to comment on the murder allegation.
"We are focusing on the sex crimes investigation," Stosberg said.
On Tuesday, relatives of the Mohler family were in the crowded courtroom as a judge read 15 new sex charges against the five men.
The charges added to 14 filed last week, accusing Mohler snr, of Independence, of rape, sodomy and the use of a child in a sexual performance. His four sons, Mohler jnr, 53, of Independence; Jared Leroy Mohler, 48, of Columbia; Roland Neil Mohler, 47, of Bates City; and David A. Mohler, 52, of Lamoni, Iowa, were charged with rape.
During their brief court appearance, four of the five men said they still were trying to find attorneys. Jared Leroy Mohler said he had hired a lawyer, who did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Meanwhile, one of several women who came forward to police also told investigators that she twice became pregnant and the men buried her first baby in their basement, according to another search warrant.
That warrant, released on Monday, said a radar used to search the rural property where Burrell Mohler snr and his sons lived in the 1980s found an anomaly "consistent with the shape of a box" under the basement’s concrete floor.
The woman told investigators that she was locked in the basement and raped in 1988.
She said the baby was buried in a box under the basement’s only window.
The affidavit said the basement floor was dirt at the time, and "following the delivery of the first baby, Burrell E. Mohler snr and Burrell E. Mohler jnr buried the infant in the basement".
The floor was later covered in concrete, according the warrant.
Gamble said none of the charges seemed plausible to him.
"Believe me if these things would have happened when Alice was alive she would have been on top of this," Gamble said. Alice Mohler was Burrell E. Mohler snr’s wife and died in 1991, he said.
No additional charges were filed against the sixth person accused in the case, Darrel W. Mohler, 72, who was being held in Marion County, Florida, on two counts of rape stemming from 1986. He agreed to be extradited to Missouri, but his arrival wasn’t immediately clear.
Various documents in the case identify the relationship between the siblings and the suspects. The Associated Press is not revealing that relationship to avoid identifying the alleged victims of sexual assault.
