BLOOMFIELD, Mo. — A Stoddard County judge ordered a Dexter man to stand trial Thursday afternoon for the June stabbing death of another man.
Accompanied by his attorney, Leslie Hazel with the Public Defender’s Office in Kennett, Joshua James Koonce was supposed to appear before Associate Circuit Judge Joe Satterfield for a preliminary hearing on the Class A felony of second-degree murder and the unclassified felony of armed criminal action.
Instead, the 30-year-old resident of the 1100 block of North Sassafras waived having a hearing in his case.
Satterfield accepted Koonce’s waiver and ordered he appear at 10 a.m. Oct. 17 before Presiding Circuit Judge Robert Mayer for arraignment on the charges.
Koonce is charged with causing the death of Jimmy Lynn Casey, who was found dead at about 8 a.m. June 28 inside his home in the 1100 block of North Mulberry Street by a home-health-care aide.
A subsequent autopsy showed the 66-year-old had been stabbed five times -- three times in the upper chest, once in the right eye and once on the top of his head.
During the ensuing investigation by the Stoddard County Major Case Squad, Koonce was developed as a person of interest. Authorities believed Koonce was the last person to see Casey alive and may have shared a sexual relationship with him.
Koonce subsequently was located in Pueblo, Colo., where he allegedly fled to avoid apprehension. He reportedly was in a hospital there after an apparent suicide attempt.
Investigators, according to earlier reports, flew to Colorado.
Koonce was interviewed and admitted to “stabbing Jimmy Casey three times in the chest with a folding knife,” Dexter Police Detective E.E. Holloway wrote in his probable-cause statement.