By NOREEN HYSLOP
SEMO News Service
BLOOMFIELD -- Following three hours of testimony in a Stoddard County courtroom Thursday afternoon, Judge Joe Z. Satterfield ordered Donald Lafferty, 69, and Christopher Hicks, 34, to be bound over to Division I Circuit Court, where they are now scheduled to appear on Aug. 6, 2014, at 10:30 a.m.
Lafferty, Christopher Hicks and his wife, Brandi Hicks, 34, were each charged in May with arson, attempted murder, first degree arson and armed criminal action following a January 2013 fire at the rural Bloomfield home of Lafferty and his now former wife, Mildred (Lafferty) Sandage. Don Lafferty is also facing the Class A felony of financial exploitation of the elderly. The charges allege that the three agreed to carry out a plan to set fire to the Lafferty home while Mildred Lafferty slept, with the Hicks couple igniting the fire for the purpose of being paid a sum of $15,000 -- to be stepped up another $5,000 should Mildred Lafferty perish in the fire.
A full courtroom sat at attention Thursday as testimony was presented by a host of witnesses to help determine whether Lafferty and Chris Hicks should proceed to Division 1.
Testimony regarding the fire and subsequent investigations into the fire, coupled with details surrounding the alleged financial exploitation of Lafferty's mother by her son, were presented, along with 18 exhibits posted by Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russell Oliver.
Prior to witnesses coming forward in the preliminary hearing Thursday for Lafferty and Chris Hicks, Brandi Hicks made an initial brief appearance, during which she waived her preliminary hearing before Satterfield. After doing so, she was escorted out of the courtroom while the preliminary hearings for her husband and for Lafferty commenced jointly.
Jason Dunn with the Missouri State Fire Marshall's Office, was the first to take the stand once the preliminary hearing of Lafferty and Chris Hicks got underway. Dunn, who covers 18 counties in Missouri, said he was called to inspect the fire at the Lafferty home on the night of the fire.
"I could smell the oder of gasoline 40 feet from the house," he said upon questioning.
Dunn said there was an obvious "pour pattern" inside the living room of the home and a "wide discoloration" patten on the carpet of the living room.
Dunn also referred to "weathered gas" having been used in the fire, and Oliver asked him to define the term. Dunn explained that gas vapors dissipate significantly when stored for months at a time, resulting in a slower ignition to a fire than when using fresh gasoline.
Dunn said the fire was quickly determined to have been arson, given the evidence of not only the gas pattern, but also a 2.5 gallon plastic gas container having been found in the living room of the home, and a butane lighter believed to have been used to ignite the gasoline.
Upon cross examination, Lafferty's attorney, Don Moore, asked Dunn if he had determined how much gas had been used inside the home, and Dunn said he did not know.
David Dudley was the second witness to take the stand Thursday. Dudley serves as a fire investigator for Shelter Insurance, the company that carried a policy on the Lafferty home. Like Dunn, Dudley also testified that he found a "large pour pattern" of gasoline in the living room of the home. He said that his determination was that the fire was "intentionally set."
Key in Dudley's testimony was his statement regarding a conversation he had with Don Lafferty following the fire.
Oliver asked Dudley if Lafferty, during his interview, had any summation for Dudley as to whether he knew who was responsible for the fire.
"Did you receive an odd reply from Mr Lafferty?" Oliver asked, to which Dudley said yes.
"He said that yes, he did," said Dudley, "but he declined to say who that individual was."
Asked if he had ever had that response before during an investigation, Dudley said he had not.
Dudley also told the court that he had requested an interview with Mildred Lafferty at the time, but that she had refused to talk to him.
The former wife of Don Lafferty, Mildred (Lafferty) Sandage, was next to take the stand. She and Lafferty divorced several months following the fire.
She told the court that on the morning of the fire, she and her husband had driven to Poplar Bluff following breakfast and coffee.
"I just drank a little bit of coffee, and it tasted very bitter. I tasted some more from the pot, and it tasted the same, so I poured it out.
The two took off shortly after breakfast for Poplar Bluff. As the day progressed, Mildred said she felt "sicker and sicker" -- even remaining in their vehicle for a time while her husband went inside a Poplar Bluff store.
She testified that when they returned home, she laid down on the couch in the living room and fell asleep. She said she was awakened by her husband moving objects from the home and taking them to the garage. One was a computer that had been on a computer desk in the bedroom, and one was a large cedar chest that held quilts given to them by the church. She said he placed both the chest and the computer in the garage, telling her that the chest was in his way and that the computer had an electrical problem and he didn't want it to "set the house on fire."
She was awakened again by her husband some time later in the afternoon with him saying he was going into town.
"He asked if I needed anything," she said on the stand. "I told him I would like a Sprite and some chips. I just wanted something salty."
She said he did return a short time later with the items. Later he awoke her again, to her husband telling her that he was going to a Dexter restaurant to get something to eat.
The next thing Mildred Lafferty remembered was waking up and finding her living room on fire. She said she awoke to the heat of the flames and had gone to the kitchen area of the home and called 911. She stated that she made the call from a landline phone in the kitchen as flames from the fire were shooting to the ceiling behind the couch where she had been sleeping.
She then exited the home and waited for the fire department inside her vehicle. It was January and a cold rain was coming down.
Oliver took Mildred Lafferty through the time period of having met the Hicks couple at Beech Grove Church in rural Bloomfield, where her husband pastored. It was 2011. She said she and her husband had lived on Route AB near Bloomfield for about 16 years.
Oliver then brought Mildred Lafferty to a time in 2012 when it appeared her husband was spending time with a church member, Brandi Hicks.
"Did you suspect an affair?" Oliver asked her.
Mrs. Lafferty said she did, and explained that there was a day in 2012 when she found her husband with Brandi Hicks at West City Park in Dexter. She said that Brandi got into her husband's truck with him and that the two took off.
"I followed them for about five to 10 minutes," she told the court, "but then I lost them."
Upon cross examination by Moore, Mildred was asked if she recalled having denied an interview to David Dudley following the fire. She told the court she didn't know who that was, and when his identify was explained, she answered, "No, I did not refuse to talk to David Dudley."
Moore questioned her regarding her reaction to awakening to the fire, and she said that she tried for about two to three minutes to battle the blaze by pouring water on the area behind the couch that was ablaze. She said in an attempt to use the sprayer on the kitchen sink, she had broken a spigot. That statement was later confirmed through a subsequent visit to the home and by viewing photos of the charred interior of the house.
Moore also asked Mrs. Lafferty to confirm which authorities questioned her following the fire. She said she had talked with the Fire Marshall (Jason Dunn) and that she had provided a taped interview with Tim McCoy, an investigator with Oliver's office.
Next, Brandi Hicks returned to the courtroom to provide her testimony.
Hicks, as she was being questioned by Lafferty's attorney, Dan Moore, admitted that she had been told by the prosecutor's office that the charges of attempted murder, arson, armed criminal -- and an added charge Thursday of burglary -- would be lessened to only the burglary charge, in exchange for her testimony.
Among Oliver's 18 exhibits was a 20-minute taped cell phone conversation that was played in open court. On that tape, a conversation took place between Don Lafferty and Brandi Hicks months after the fire during a time that Lafferty was residing with a daughter in Vermont. Brandi Hicks admitted in her testimony Thursday that the conversation was a ploy in cooperation with authorities in an attempt to get Lafferty to admit his alleged role in the arson. No such admission came during the taped conversation, with Lafferty at one point asking Hicks if she was recording the call.
The tape was played just prior to Brandi Hicks re-entering the courtroom to testify.
Brandi Hicks admitted when she took the stand that the conversation had been taped with her permission by the Prosecuting Attorney's investigator, Tim McCoy, in an attempt to implicate Lafferty in the arson and to get him to admit that he had promised the Hicks couple $15,000 for setting fire to his home and an additional $5,000, should Mildred Lafferty die in the fire.
Don Lafferty sat in the courtroom Thursday alongside his counsel, Dan Moore, and was void of any outward emotion as the tape played on. At the same table sat Christopher Hicks with his attorney, David Ward. The two defendants watched and listened as Brandi Hicks eventually took the stand to tell her side of the drama that led up to charges being brought against the trio.
Oliver led Brandi Hicks through a line of questioning during which she explained how she and her husband came to know the Laffertys when they attended the church in Bloomfield where he pastored.
Hicks testified that she and her husband, Chris, began attending Lafferty's church in early 2011, and that by mid 2011, she and the pastor were meeting for lunch dates, often traveling out of town together.
She said that Lafferty had baptized her into the church and that a short time later had said to her, "God has told me I like you a little too much."
It wasn't long, she said, before their relationship became physical.
"We'd meet at West City Park (in Dexter) once or twice a week," she said. "Sometimes we'd go to a gravel road, and sometimes we'd go to my house."
Upon cross examination by Moore, Hicks said that she and Lafferty would sometimes engage in sexual activity at her home while her husband, Christopher, was in another room. She also said that Lafferty had bought her two vehicles, the first of which she lost to a title loan company when she did not repay a loan taken out against the value of the vehicle.
When asked if her husband knew of the relationship between herself and Lafferty, she answered, "If he didn't, it was because he didn't want to know."
In telling of the alleged plot to kill Mildred Lafferty in a house fire, Brandi Hicks said that it was Don Lafferty's idea, and that he promised the couple the money to do the job.
She testified that once the plan was devised by Lafferty and she agreed to take part, he supplied her with a house key. She then recounted the night of the fire, saying that she and her husband drove out to the Lafferty home on Highway AB outside of Bloomfield's city limits. Once there, she said her husband retrieved a half-full gas can from the garage, and after her husband unlocked the door to the home, the two went inside where they found Mildred Lafferty asleep on the couch.
"Chris poured the gas around the couch, and poured some on Mildred," she said.
"I stood behind him and watched when he lit the fire."
It was a slow-burning fire, she said. "There was no big explosion."
The flame traveled around the couch and the coffee table in front of the couch, she explained.
"Then we turned around and walked out."
The two then drove to Dexter, where at the home of a relative, they burned the clothes that Chris had been wearing. Changing into spare clothing, the two then drove home, and Brandi left to reportedly meet Donald Lafferty at a Dexter restaurant. It was there, in the parking lot, that she said Lafferty told her the Fire Marshall was already at the house.
She also told the court that driving away from the Lafferty home, she asked her husband if he had noticed a bottle of cough syrup containing hydrocodone on the kitchen countertop. When he said he had, the two agreed to go back the following night and take the bottle, which she admitted they had done, gaining entrance to the home by breaking a side door window. Photos placed on display by Oliver proved that the door's window was intact on the night of the fire. Earlier testimony from the insurance investigator indicated that the door's window had been broken, with shattered glass still on the ground.
Also testifying on Thursday was the mother of Don Lafferty, Goldie Lafferty. Nearly 90 years old, she testified prior to her daughter, Kathleen Roberts, regarding a CD valued at over $80,000 that had been cashed in by her son, Don Lafferty. She adamantly stated that she did not grant him permission to do so. She said the money represented her life savings after having spent several years employed as a school cook and at a local nursing home.
A bank official from First State and Trust Company, Brenda Garner, also testified Thursday, explaining that when Don Lafferty presented Power of Attorney at the banking facility, he was eventually able to claim the cash value of his mother's CD. By the time a bank statement revealed that the money had been drawn out, about $800 is all that remained of Goldie Lafferty's life's work. She said that amount was drawn out for Goldie Lafferty, and that the account was closed.
Lafferty was picked up on May 12, 2014, in North Andover, Mass., where he had been living with relatives since a few months after the fire. Once charged, his bond was set at $750,000 cash only, with a list of 12 special conditions. No bond has been posted, and he remains in the Stoddard County Jail. Bond for both Christopher and Brandi Hicks was also set at $750,000. They also remain incarcerated.
Given Thursday's testimony, Judge Joe Z. Satterfield found "just cause" that Christopher Hicks and Don Lafferty should be bound over to Division I Circuit Court for an Aug. 6 hearing. Brandi Hicks is also scheduled for an appearance on that date.