A Missouri investigator warned that his office is racing to untangle a killing that already went unreported for nearly a year.
Chief Deputy Curtis Hall of the Callaway County Sheriff’s Office spoke two days after the arrest of Jonathan G. Houston, 44, a former correctional officer now charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping. Hall told KOMU that his team is working a case with a ten-month head start on the suspect.
“At this point we’re 48 hours afterwards on a crime that we’re already 10 months behind on,” Hall said. “We have to be mindful of what we can release and what we should release.”
Houston is being held without bond after one of his seven children broke the silence that had surrounded their mother’s death. The child called 911 from a Baymont Inn & Suites in Kingdom City on Sunday and whispered to dispatchers that she and her siblings had been kidnapped and were regularly abused by their father, according to charging documents.
Responding officers found the children at the hotel, where one of them told police that Houston had strangled their mother in front of them ten months earlier. The child described a calculated scene of violence that enlisted some of the children as participants while shielding the youngest from witnessing it.
While Houston had his wife by the throat, he allegedly forced one child to pour hot water down her legs. He directed another child to cover her mother’s mouth to stifle her screams, according to court records. The three youngest children were locked in a bathroom with loud music playing so they would not hear the killing.
Afterward, Houston allegedly placed his wife’s body in a trash bag and threw it into a dumpster on the hotel property. The woman, who has not been publicly identified, was never reported missing during the months that followed.
Houston confessed to investigators that he killed his wife and had planned the killing ahead of time, according to charging documents. Police said he is also under investigation for a prior sexual assault and the assault of other victims.
The children were taken into protective custody following their father’s arrest. Hall indicated that the investigation remains active as authorities work to establish a complete picture of events that unfolded nearly a year before anyone outside the family knew to look for them.
Houston’s background as a correctional officer adds another dimension to a case already marked by allegations of coercion and control. The charging documents portray a father who allegedly used his authority to compel his own children into complicity with a killing, then kept them in his custody for months without outside intervention.
The 911 call that finally brought police to the hotel room came from a child who found a way to reach help despite the isolation Houston allegedly enforced. The whispered report of kidnapping and abuse opened a door that had remained closed since the mother’s death.