MANSLAUGHTER PLEA: Man sentenced to 10 years for shooting death of 22-year-old Dora resident; now faces federal child porn, weapons charges

Allen R. Shafer, 34, of West Plains pleaded guilty by Alford plea to involuntary manslaughter and tampering with a motor vehicle in connection with the May 9, 2020, shooting death of 22-year-old Devon “Porky” Massey in Dora. 

The plea was made July 16 before Judge Jeffrey M. Merrell in Taney County, where the case was being heard after a change-of-venue motion from Ozark County was sustained early in the proceedings. 

Shafer was originally charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and tampering with a motor vehicle. 

He was sentenced to 10 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections on the manslaughter charge and seven years in prison for the tampering charge. The two charges are to be served concurrently, meaning at the same time, for a total of 10 years. 

An Alford plea, sometimes referred to as a “best interests plea” means that Shafer does not necessarily admit that he committed manslaughter or tampered with a vehicle, but he believes that the evidence against him would convince a jury to find him guilty of the charges. An Alford plea does not mean the sentencing is lessened, and a defendant who pleads guilty by Alford plea accepts all the same ramifications of a traditional guilty verdict without attesting to the committed crime. 

Shafer has also been indicted on federal charges of receiving child pornography, unlawful transport of firearms and stealing imported or interstate-shipped weapons from a gun dealer. See details about that case below. 

Massey shooting death

According to the probable cause statement prepared by former Ozark County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Winston Collins, the sheriff’s department received a call at 9:12 p.m. Saturday, May 9, 2020, reporting that a person had been shot near County Roads 192 and 195 in Dora. 

Deputies and medical personnel were dispatched to the area, but neither the gunshot victim or the shooter could be found, according to the statement. 

While officers were searching the area for a victim and shooter, Shafer called the sheriff’s department and told the dispatcher he had been involved in an altercation and had shot a man. Shafer reportedly said he’d left the scene in a vehicle and then abandoned it, and was now walking on county roads and was lost. He told the dispatcher he was unfamiliar with the area and wasn’t sure where he was. 

At 10:59 p.m., a sheriff’s department dispatcher conducted an emergency cell phone ping on Shafer’s phone. The ping returned coordinates in West Plains. 

According to statements from Shafer and a witness of the shooting, the incident occurred while Shafer, Massey and the witness were traveling in the area of County Road 195 in Dora in a 1995 gold Ford Explorer. The vehicle, which was registered to a member of Massey’s family, had been entered into the Missouri crime database as a stolen vehicle. 

Around 3 a.m., Massey’s body was found just off the roadway on County Road 195 near Dora. The court documents do not detail who found the body, but family members told the Times that it was Massey’s mother, along with other relatives, who discovered her deceased son’s body on a gravel road. The report says Massey had one gunshot wound to the chest. 

Officers continued to try and locate Shafer off cell phone pings, which by then suggested the cell phone was near Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, and later that it was on Highway 63 in Cabool. 

At 5 a.m. May 10, the morning after the shooting, Shafer reportedly returned a call to West Plains Cpl. Brandon Stephens, who had interacted with Shafer a week prior in an unrelated incident and had left a voicemail on Shafer’s girlfriend’s phone.

Stephens said Shafer was on the phone with him for over an hour, explaining that he was lost. 

Around 6:25 a.m. Shafer said he saw a couple of police cars and was going to pull in and speak with him. 

“That ended up being me...and he pulled into the parking lot where I was,” Stephens said. 

The officer arrested Shafer, who was inside the stolen Explorer. A .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol was found in “plain view” of officers inside the Explorer, the report says. The Explorer was towed to an impound lot, and the firearm was seized and secured. 

An unnatural position of the deceased’s body

A preliminary hearing in the case was held before Judge Raymond Gross on July 28, giving more insight into the case. 

Former Deputy Winston Collins was among those who testified at the hearing. 

Collins told the court that he and three other deputies responded to the area of County Road 192 and 195 after a dispatcher informed the officers that a man had been shot in that area and had unknown injuries. 

Collins said it was 9:28 p.m. when he arrived at the scene after leaving his Dora home, about 32 minutes after the call came in, and the three other deputies were already on scene. 

Collins said deputies searched the area for several hours, but Massey was not found. 

Later, around 3 a.m., in a spot on County Road 195 where officers had searched at least four times, Collins said, the body was found by Massey’s mother and relatives who were helping look for him.

Collins also said that Massey’s body was found in an unnatural position, “lying face up with his right arm extended and his left arm elevated.”

Collins said this position was unusual, and the elevated arms and Massey’s semi-straightened legs were likely a result of rigor mortis and “that was not the natural resting place at the time he expired.” 

Audio issue with interviews

Collins said the vehicle Shafer was found inside upon his arrest in West Plains belonged to Sandra White, the mother of Aaron White, who was driving the vehicle with Massey and Shafer inside prior to the shooting. 

After Shafer was arrested, he was transported back to the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department, where he underwent an interview by former Ozark County Sheriff’s Deputies Cpl. Curtis Dobbs and Sgt. Vesa Phelan. 

Collins said that Shafer was interviewed four times in the Ozark County Jail’s interview room, which is equipped with video and audio recording hardware, but only the third and fourth interviews’ audio was recorded.

Ozark County Prosecuting Attorney John Garrabrant asked why the first two weren’t audio recorded, and Collins said, “It is our belief that someone inadvertently stepped on a microphone cord, which caused it to unplug and not obtain the audio.”

First interview

Former Deputy Dobbs took the stand and described the first interview. 

Dobbs said Shafer told them he and White had ridden in the vehicle from West Plains to White’s parents’ property and then continued on the gravel roads. At some point, the vehicle got a flat tire, and Massey and White got out to fix it. They asked Shafer to help, but he said he didn’t want to, so he stayed in the car. 

Shafer was asked to retrieve a small air compressor that he had with him, and when he attempted to get it from a duffel bag, someone opened the vehicle door and hit him with something shiny. He said that then one of the men climbed on top of him in the back of the seat and began striking him in the head. 

“He said he pinned...Massey [above him,] against the roof of the car with his feet and hands... He said... he felt something fall on him.... a firearm.”

Shafer grabbed the gun and said he tried to fire a round where no one would be hit. At that point, Massey and White screamed and ran off, Dobbs said in his testimony.

Second interview

In the second interview, Shafer gave officers another brief description of what he said happened that night.

“He indicated he was in an altercation with Devon Massey, that he was striking him, and that a firearm fell on his chest, and he grabbed the firearm and shot Massey,” Collins said, clarifying that the altercation was a physical fight, and that he’d taken the gun from Massey and shot him inside a vehicle on a dirt road in Dora and that Aaron White was present too.

Shafer also told officers he had his own gun, another .380-caliber Kel-Tec firearm, in a bag that he’d brought with him into the vehicle. 

After the shooting, Collins said, “Massey and White ran... [Shafer] got into the vehicle, and left...”

Shafer was arrested nine hours later in West Plains. 

Collins said a search warrant was executed on the stolen vehicle after Shafer’s arrest, and officers found a Kel-Tec Model .380 and a spent projectile inside. 

Third interview

In the third interview, which was video and audio recorded, Collins said Shafer further explained the moments when he says the firearm fell onto his chest. 

“He said that it fell on his chest, but then went down into the fold of the seat,” Collins said. 

Collins said that Shafer also said that he’d given one .380 to his girlfriend sometime after the shooting, in those nine hours when he’d told officers he’d been lost in the woods. 

When officers asked Shafer to describe the other gun, he reportedly told officers they were “nearly a matching pistol, both Kel-Tec 380s, one with a silver slide, one with a black slide.”

He continued to insist that the gun that was used in the shooting was Massey’s. In the third interview, Shafer also told officers that he’d either sold or traded the vehicle they were in to Massey a few days prior to the shooting. 

Fourth interview

In the fourth interview, Collins said Shafer’s story changed  slightly.

“He indicated the second firearm that he initially reported that was in the back, that he removed it from the back prior to the shooting and placed it in the fold of the seat,” Collins said. 

When Collins asked Shafer why he’d told him something different earlier, Shafer reportedly told the officer that he “thought he would get in trouble or that it would look bad for him if he had both firearms in the seat at the time of the shooting.”

A laundromat statement

Another witness to take the stand was Christopher Farrar, who said  he’d seen Shafer earlier on the day of the shooting at the West Plains Laundromat.

“He showed me the gash on his head . . .  and then he showed me two pistols that he had in his waistline,” Farris said, indicating they were two .380s. “[He said they were for] protection basically. That he had gotten jumped that night before... He said that it wouldn’t happen again, that he would get even with the people that did it to him.”

Farrar’s testimony seemed to indicate that Shafer had “gotten jumped” on May 8 and was with Massey and White again on May 9, the night of the shooting.

Child porn, weapons charges

Online federal court records show that Shafer was federally indicted on three class C felonies, receiving child pornography, unlawful transport of firearms and stealing an imported or interstate shipped weapons from a gun dealer. 

Although federal court documents do not give as much detail about the charges as local cases have, the indictment shows that Shafer received the child pornography sometime between May 9 and May 10, 2020, stole a 9mm Glock model 43 handgun from a federal firearms licensed dealer in Howell County sometime between May 7 and May 9, 2020, and possessed that weapon knowing it was unlawful for him to do so as a previously convicted felon. 

As the dates of the child porn and weapons charges coincide with Shafer’s arrest for the Dora incident, it is thought that the allegations in which the federal case is based were discovered as part of the shooting investigation after he was taken into custody by the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department. 

The federal court has issued an order for U.S. Marshal’s Office to temporarily take custody of Shafer and transport him to the federal courthouse in Springfield for the federal case. Details on his first federal court appearance are not yet detailed on the federal court website.