Domestic assault charges deferred, dismissed
Sep. 8—The Jasper County prosecutor's office Thursday dismissed felony domestic assault charges that one Joplin woman was facing and announced that it was deferring prosecution of a second woman's domestic assault case.
Prosecution of a charge of second-degree domestic assault filed a year ago on Krista L. Webb, 32, was deferred for one year at a hearing in Jasper County Circuit Court to give the defendant an opportunity to comply with the parenting requirements of the Missouri Department of Social Services and get the charge dismissed.
Webb was accused of putting her 10-year-old daughter in a bear hug and hitting and choking her during an argument on June 16, 2021, at their home on West 21st Street Terrace in Joplin.
The prosecutor's office also dismissed two counts of second-degree domestic assault that Theresa Morrison, 52, has been facing in connection with an investigation by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services of alleged elder abuse of the defendant's stepmother in May 2019.
An affidavit filed with the charges in January 2020 alleged that Morrison became upset with her stepmother for refusing to answer her questions about other family members and allegedly kicked her in the stomach and pinned her down on a bed with her leg across her stepmother's throat.
The affidavit alleged that Morrison falsely believed that she had worked for federal law enforcement agencies and was asking questions about family members for a book of memoirs she wished to write about her time working for those agencies.
The prosecutor's office cited an inability to locate the stepmother to arrange for her testimony against Morrison as the reason for dismissal of the charges.
Jeff Lehr is a reporter for The Joplin Globe.
