A former Colony man with an extended criminal history faces two counts of second-degree murder after a crash resulted in the death of a Missouri sheriff’s deputy and his wife.
Garrett C. Cleaver, 40, Webb City, Mo., was arrested after he was believed to be involved in a pursuit before crashing his pickup head-on into a minivan in Ozark, Mo., just south of Springfield.
According to police and media reports, Cleaver was spotted by a Christian County deputy leaving the area of a known drug house with non-functional headlights the evening of June 30.
The deputy attempted to initiate a traffic stop, but the truck fled and sped along the road, and eventually left the roadway into a field.
The deputy lost sight of the truck until spotting it crashing into a Honda minivan.
In the minivan were Christian County sheriff’s deputy Mike Adams, who was off duty at the time of the wreck, and his wife, Ashley.
The Adamses were declared dead at the scene. An infant grandchild in the minivan also was hospitalized for “serious head injuries,” reports said.
Court documents said a video taken by a witness shows the pickup went airborne due to its high rate of speed at one point, causing the driver to lose control, and when the pickup landed back on the ground, it crashed head-on into the minivan.
“The suspect has an extensive criminal history, and it is what I would consider a violent criminal history,” Christian County Sheriff Brad Cole told KY 3 News in Springfield. “It is 52 pages long. Within that 52 pages, there’s numerous felonies, felony convictions, and arrests
“You could see why I’m upset about it,” Cole said, “and why our citizens on the streets, they should be upset about this, too.”
Included in Cleaver’s criminal history was the conviction of a 2009 manslaughter charge in Neosho County, in which Cleaver was driving a pickup that crashed head-on into a car killing a New Jersey man.
Cleaver also did time for a laundry list of crimes in Allen County, including fleeing from officers in April 2010 when they attempted to arrest him after a warrant was issued for his role in the 2009 crash. He was arrested about two weeks later after another pursuit in rural Missouri.
