Alleged robber hits neighbor in face with stick, steals drugs


Stephen Shaw

A Gainesville man is being held on a $20,000 cash-only bond and is facing four felony charges for reportedly breaking into his neighbor’s house at 8 p.m. July 2, demanding all the man’s drugs, striking the neighbor in the head with a large stick and stealing several things from the home.

 Stephen Shaw, 33, who is currently in the Missouri Department of Corrections on other charges, is scheduled to return here for a Sept. 11 court appearance  before Associate Judge Cynthia MacPherson for a criminal setting. Shaw, represented by public defender Spellman Robertson,  is charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree assault and two counts of armed criminal action. 

According to the charging document in the case written by Ozark County Deputy Kyle Hannaford, officers were dispatched to a home on Hillside Drive in Gainesville after the resident of the home told a dispatcher that his neighbor, Shaw, broke into his residence and assaulted him. 

Hannaford and Ozark County Deputy Wayne Romans responded to the call and reportedly asked Shaw if he had had an argument with his neighbor. Shaw replied, “I’m tired of all these meth addicts,” the statement says. Hannaford asked Shaw if the argument had escalated into an altercation, and Shaw reportedly said, “I told him if he’s got some meth, he needs to give it to me now or I’m going to slap the [expletive] out of him. Yeah, I did.”

Hannaford and Romans then spoke with the neighbor who had reported the incident, and he told them that  Shaw brought a large stick and struck him across the face with it near his mouth. Hannaford wrote that the neighbor had an obvious contusion on his left jaw, and a piece of a broken stick was lying on the floor next to the chair. 

The man said Shaw kicked in the side door to his home and kept saying, “Give me all your drugs.”

Then Shaw allegedly stole the neighbor’s prescription medication off the table and other belongings off a chair, threatened him and broke several DVDs and CDs. 

When Hannaford and Romans returned to Shaw’s residence, they saw another part of the broken stick lying on a mattress in the living room. The stick was consistent with the one used during the incident, the report says. The officers arrested Shaw and transported him to the Ozark County Jail to be booked.

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423