Second Jefferson City resident charged in possible 2015 murder case

Sandy Gallaspie
Sandy Gallaspie

A man wanted in connected with an ongoing missing person case that authorities believe could become a murder case is scheduled to make his first court appearance later this week.

Sandy Gallaspie, 58, was taken into custody Saturday in the 5700 block of Foxfire Lane after authorities announced Friday that they were searching for him.

Gallaspie is charged with abandoning a corpse, according to information from the Cole County Circuit Clerk's Office.

Gallaspie was named as a suspect after human remains were found last week in Cole County in a possible murder case from 2015.

A Jefferson City woman was charged last month with abandonment of a corpse in connection with the case. Suzanne Ponder-Williams, 47, is believed to have committed the crime around November 2015, according to a probable cause statement.

On June 26, an inmate at the county jail asked to speak with a detective, claiming to know where a body was buried and that the victim might have been shot to death before being buried.

Members of the Cole County Sheriff's Department, the Missouri Highway Patrol and the Moniteau County Sheriff's Department went to a residence in the 2700 block of Bess Hill Road on June 27. The property owner allowed authorities to search the property with cadaver dogs. The dogs indicated there were human remains on the property but couldn't give an exact location.

The inmate was taken to the site and directed authorities to a specific area of the property, where a human fibula and eventually a nearly complete human skeleton were uncovered.

The remains were taken to the University of Missouri Medical Examiner's Office for further analysis and identification.

The inmate was interviewed again June 28 and admitted he had assisted in burying the body. The inmate also gave the name of the person who allegedly shot the victim once in the chest.

After the murder, the inmate said, he sat in the home of Ponder-Williams and Gallaspie, the alleged shooter, and talked about how and where to dispose of the body.

The inmate said Gallaspie told him he had shot the victim once in the chest, then dragged the body from a car driven by Ponder-Williams, the victim's ex-wife. The inmate said Gallaspie had contacted him to have him assist in disposing of the body. They used a tractor to dig the hole, put the body in the hole, then backfilled the hole with dirt to conceal the corpse, the inmate said.

Gallaspie allegedly admitted to killing the person in question in this case after being taken into custody Saturday, according to a Cole County Sheriff's Department probable cause statement.

While charging documents include the name of the suspected victim, that name has not been included in this article pending confirmation from authorities, who are still listing the person as missing as of Monday afternoon.

Cole County Sheriff John Wheeler said Monday that this is still an active case.