Deputy Sheriff Dies from Wounds

The Dent County prosecutor is still working on charges to be filed after two shooting incidents that left three people dead, including a deputy sheriff, and three others wounded. Deputy Joann Barnes died in a St. Louis County hospital early this morning. She and Sheriff Bob Wofford were shot when they went to the home of a Dent County man who was a suspect in a double murder that happened a few minutes earlier. In the exchange of gunfire, Barnes and Wofford were wounded as were the suspect and a woman in his house. The prosecutor is drafting the charges to be filed against Earl Mitchell Forrest II. He’s the suspect in the shooting of Salem resident Harriett Sue Smith, and a second person, Michael Raymond Well of Licking, at the Smith home. Wofford and Forrest have been released from a Salem hospital after treatment for their wounds. The woman in Forrest’s house, whose name has not been released, remains hospitalized in Creve Coeur.