METH AND MURDER

BOLIVAR, MO. - A roofer was tied to a tree and beaten to a slow, painful
death. The crime has townspeople in Bolivar, Mo., wondering whether drug
dealing has altered their way of life forever.

In 1993, the book "The 100 Best Small Towns in America" called this one the
safest in the nation. That was before Rocky Davisson was tied to a tree
outside of town and kicked, stomped and slowly beaten to death.

And that was before methamphetamine came to Polk County and left its mark
on this town of about 9,000 people, 30 miles north of

Springfield.

Assaults, burglaries and drug crimes are rising. The county jail is at
capacity, and there barely is room for the Bolivar residents accused in the
Davisson case.

Polk County Sheriff Michael Parson says meth is the single biggest crime
problem in his county of just under 27,000 residents and that more than
half of the prisoners awaiting trial in the county jail face meth-related
charges.

"There is simply no end in sight to the meth problem here," Parson said.
"The vast majority of people out here are good people, but there is an
element that's associated with drugs, and it seems to be growing."

Methamphetamine -- often called crystal or crank -- is an easy-to-make
stimulant that can be smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected. It's made
largely from legal ingredients such as over-the-counter cold pills and
ether. A quick method for making the powerful drug calls for anhydrous
ammonia, a fertilizer usually stolen from farmers.

Easy access to anhydrous ammonia and sparse law enforcement has created a
meth explosion in the Ozarks. Last year, police in Missouri raided more
than 2,100 drug labs, more than any other state.

Police and prosecutors won't talk about the motive in the killing of
Davisson, 31, a roofer from Springfield whose bloody, half-naked body was
found dumped along a gravel road in July. Police call the killing
meth-related, and townspeople speculate that a drug debt was involved or
that the suspects believed Davisson was a police snitch.

Testimony from the grand jury is sealed, but those close to the
investigation describe a drawn-out, painful death.

Police say Davisson was kidnapped in Springfield and taken to a farm
outside of Bolivar, where he was tied to a tree and beaten for several
hours. They say that the killers cut off the long, brown locks that were
his pride and joy, and that they urinated on him.

A medical examiner from Springfield said the cause of death was subdural
hematoma, a collection of blood on the surface of the brain, caused by
several swift blows to his head.

In town, people use simpler terms. They say Davisson was tortured until he
died.

Six suspects were indicted by a grand jury on charges of felonious
restraint and second-degree murder. Five of the six are Bolivar residents:
Denise Blake, 45; Mickel D. Garrett, 27; Terry W. Garzee, 41; Ricky K.
Herbert, 32; and David W. Jarnagin, 32. Some of these suspects have lived
in Bolivar all of their lives, and their families have a long history in
the town. Jason Withnell, 22, of Dundee, Ore., also is charged. All are
being held on $500,000 bail.

Seven friends and relatives of the accused are charged with hindering
prosecution. Some allegedly helped Jarnagin cross into Oklahoma, where he
was arrested and extradited back to Bolivar. Two weeks ago, he briefly
escaped from jail.

"Everyone was shocked"

Residents are worried in this town that's home to Southwest Baptist
University, more than 20 evangelical churches and not a single tavern.

Officially, Bolivar calls itself "The Friendly City."

"There is no excuse for what they did to that boy," said Eula Rozella Ghys,
who owns a floral shop on Bolivar's courthouse square. "Everyone was
shocked by the brutality, but the truth is Bolivar is not what it used to be."

Ghys, 62, said the biggest surprise wasn't the nature of the crime, but the
last names of some of the suspects.

She said people in Bolivar and much of fast-growing southwest Missouri
usually blame outsiders and new residents for the rise in violent crime.

"But just about everyone involved in this is from Bolivar, and some of
these boys don't come from bad families," she said.

Shawn Rowley is a custodian at Bolivar High School. He said some of Polk
County's law-abiding residents bear partial responsibility for its meth
problem. Rowley, 37, said that in the Ozarks, people don't like to meddle
in their neighbors' affairs and they don't always rush to call police if
they think someone is breaking the law.

"Everybody knows meth is here, and a lot of people know who is making it,"
he said. "But if it's not knocking on their door, they don't care about it.
If it isn't affecting them, they don't want to get involved."

"Big, sophisticated operations"

Two years ago, a deputy pulled a car over to write a speeding ticket.

The driver, who was high on meth, shot the deputy six times. The deputy
lived and is now back on the job, but Parson said the shooting taught the
force that "what used to be routine police work isn't routine any more."

The county has been successful at stamping out what used to be its biggest
drug problem, marijuana cultivation. Last week, deputies in a Missouri
Highway Patrol helicopter spotted more than 300 cannabis plants. A few
years ago, police in Polk County would find thousands of plants in flyover
operations.

Parson believes some of the marijuana farmers have switched to large-scale
meth production, and police are discovering that the operations are next to
impossible to detect. He said the drug labs that police find are small-time
operations run by inexperienced meth cooks. "There are big, sophisticated
operations that we're not catching," Parson said.

The department has only three detectives, and they investigate everything
from murder to vandalism. There is no narcotics division, and no single
officer is dedicated to drug work. Parson said the department can't afford
the undercover detectives and drug informers that other rural forces have
used to make a dent in meth production.

Parson said that if he could hire just two officers to investigate meth, he
could shut down many of the county's drug labs. Southern Missouri is the
front line of the nation's war on meth, but he says that most sheriffs are
pretty much on their own.

"The truth is you're not going to see a DEA agent down here, and you're not
going to see an FBI agent down here. We're it," he said.

"And until serious state and federal moneys get into rural southwest
Missouri, we're going to keep having serious problems."

No drug-fighting grants will make it any easier for Roberta O'Neal to face
next Sunday, the day her son Rocky Davisson would have turned 32.

It's been more than two months since the killing, but O'Neal said she still
can't understand why her son was murdered or why his killers made him
suffer such a painful, prolonged death.

O'Neal lives in Springfield, where she works the graveyard shift at a
turkey processing plant. The long hours don't leave her a lot of time to
meet with police and prosecutors. She says the little she knows about the
murder comes from local media reports.

She keeps an album of clipped articles from the Bolivar and

Springfield newspapers, condolences and pictures of her son. She said
nothing in the scrapbook helps her make sense of the killing or explain
Davisson's death to his three young children.

"None of us have any idea how he got mixed up with these people," O'Neal
said. "He enjoyed life, and he was always a kind boy. It doesn't make any
sense why anyone would do this to him."

Back in Bolivar, the concerns about meth and crime persist.

Roberta Andrews, 64, said that, for the first time, she worries that she
could become a victim.

"Our little old town used to be so safe," she said. "You didn't have to
lock your doors, and now you don't want to sleep with your windows open."