John Jefferson
Background: Oak Grove Church Road, Franklin County, Mo. (Google Maps). Inset: Donald A. Pierce Jr. (Franklin County Sheriff’s Office).
A man in Missouri is behind bars after allegedly running down his estranged wife and forcing her off the road into a creek — and the victim’s family members say it’s because she was going to testify against him in an upcoming rape trial.
Donald A. Pierce Jr., 45, is currently in custody at the Franklin County Jail on charges of second-degree murder, armed criminal action, and child neglect. According to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, Pierce was behind the wheel of a borrowed 2009 Chevy Impala when he chased a 1999 Ford Explorer, driven by his estranged wife Jody Pierce, 41, off Oak Grove Church Road in Franklin County. Highway patrol officers who responded at around 4:30 p.m. on Saturday to calls of a crash found the Explorer “overturned off the roadway, and submerged in a creek.”
Jody Pierce was pronounced dead on the scene, the affidavit said. Local CBS outlet KMOV reported that she was Pierce’s estranged wife. A cousin told the station that the couple had been living apart for three months and that Jody Pierce had recently returned to the area to celebrate her daughter’s birthday.
That cousin also told the station that the victim was preparing to testify in Donald Pierce’s upcoming rape trial, and that the suspect intentionally ran her down.
“Jody was going to fess up and tell, tell everything and he got all upset,” Jerry Pehley, a cousin, told KMOV. “And that’s the outcome of it.”
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One witness told investigators that she was on the phone with Jody Pierce at the time of the crash and that Jody Pierce had told her she was being chased by Donald Pierce. Two witnesses said they saw Donald Pierce at the scene and inside the Impala, and his cellphone was later recovered at the scene near Jody Pierce’s car, the affidavit said.
Pierce then returned the car to its owner, also in Franklin County, and the owner told investigators that Pierce had told her he was involved in a crash. That witness said that Pierce then left her home and was picked up “by an unknown subject.”
Another witness said that Jody Pierce had dropped her off at her home at around 4 p.m. that day and that while they were in the car, Donald Pierce ran up to the car and “jumped through the front passenger side window and began verbally abusing” Jody Pierce.
Moments later, the witness said, Pierce had run back to the Impala and tried to use it to block Jody Pierce’s car in the driveway “in an attempt to get [Jody Pierce] to talk to him.”
Jody Pierce was eventually able to leave the driveway, at which point Donald Pierce allegedly followed her “in a reckless manner, cutting directly in front of” her car.
“Through investigation, it is believed Donald A. Pierce Jr. intentionally used the Chevrolet with its front driver side and rear passenger side to strike [Jody Pierce’s] Ford, which caused the Ford to go off the left side of the roadway, strike a tree, overturn, and become submerged in a creek,” the affidavit says.
Pierce was arrested on Sunday. According to the affidavit, he allegedly admitted to investigators to “actively chasing” Jody Pierce when she crashed. He denied, however, striking her car with the Impala just before the crash, and he said he “jumped in the water to try to save [Jody Pierce], but could not do anything.”
Additionally, the affidavit notes, Pierce “said he never called 911 and never contacted law enforcement in reference to what had occurred.”
According to court records, Pierce has a hearing scheduled in the murder case for Wednesday.
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