MCS-1
The Case of the Spent Shell Casings
The Major Case Squad was called out for the first time on November 24, 1983. On that chilly Thanksgiving morning the body of Kenneth M. Wood, 61, was found lying in a pool of blood in the woods at the edge of Interstate I-55 in Cape Girardeau County, just south of the Perry County line.
Shortly after daybreak, a passing motorist noticed the body and called 911.
A blood and drag trail suggested that Wood had been shot twice in the back of the head while he was at the northbound shoulder of the highway, then dragged into the woods, where he had been shot twice more. The last two bullets went through his heart as he lay on the ground. They were dug out of the soil directly underneath his body.
No vehicles were found at the remote, unpopulated area. A tire gauge and bloody eyeglasses belonging to Wood were discovered in the grass near the shoulder of the road.
Kenneth M. Wood’s wallet was attached to his body by a chain. His identification was still in his wallet. He was from Oconto, Wisconsin.
How a Wisconsin truck driver ended up dead at the side of a highway in Missouri was a mystery. Investigators did not immediately see any answers.
Four expended shell casings, which would have been ejected from the killer’s handgun while he was shooting Wood, were recovered at the scene. The brand of ammunition was "Norma."
Investigators quickly determined that Wood was a truck driver who worked for Midwestern Distribution, a company based in Fort Scott, Kansas. He had been driving a load of aluminum worth about $30,000 from a plant in Sheffield, Alabama, to Iowa. He was a well-liked family man. His employer and immediate family knew of no one with any motive to kill him.
His wife, Kay Wood, had Thanksgiving turkey dinner waiting for him at home in Wisconsin. Instead of hearing him come in the door, though, she received the horrible telephone call from the Major Case Squad.
Meanwhile, by 9:20 a.m., just an hour after Wood’s body had been found, his truck was located abandoned on a Central Hardware parking lot in St. Louis, still fully loaded with its aluminum. No one was in it. The truck’s trailer had a mysterious and incomprehensible splash of fresh brown paint on one side.
Meanwhile, investigators Jim Keathley and Curt Casteel had been assigned the lead that ultimately broke the case. They were told to see if it would be possible to track down the killer through the Norma brand ammunition.
At that time, federal regulations required the purchaser of handgun ammunition to show photo identification. Keithley and Casteel, with aid from the FBI, quickly established that Norma brand ammunition was fairly uncommon. It was sold at only two stores in Missouri. The day after the body was found, Keithley and Casteel were at Denny Dennis Hardware in Fenton, Missouri, 100 miles from the scene of the crime, poring over his records. They discovered that a young man from St. Louis named Ray Lloyd Bibb, Jr., 23, had bought that brand of ammunition just three days before the murder. They left the store with a copy of Bibb’s driver’s license in their possession.
On December 1, 1983, after a stakeout, officers located Ray Lloyd Bibb, Jr. They told him they were investigating the murder in Cape Girardeau County. He was so flabbergasted and frightened to find that his "perfect" crime had been solved so quickly, he soon confessed.
Bibb related a story so bizarre that it would have been amusing in its ineptitude, had it not been so tragic in its results.
The death of Kenneth M. Wood was a part of a robbery and hijacking plan concocted by Curtis A. Cutts, 23, a friend of Bibb’s. Cutts had formerly worked for Midwestern Distribution. He knew that trucks leaving the aluminum plant in Sheffield, Alabama, usually carried valuable loads of aluminum. Cutts intended to steal the aluminum and sell it.
Cutts enlisted Bibb to be the triggerman in the robbery. Melissa Wagner, 17, the girlfriend of Curtis Cutts, also went along to help drive. After Bibb borrowed a .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun from a friend, they traveled in a rental car from St. Louis to Sheffield, Alabama, and chose at random their victim -- a Midwestern Distribution truck leaving the aluminum plant.
Unfortunately for Kenneth M. Wood, his truck was the one selected.
The trio first tried to disable the truck by throwing paint at its windshield. They put brown paint into a glass jar, pulled onto the shoulder of the roadway ahead of the truck, and lobbed the jar at the windshield of the truck as it whizzed past them. The plan was that the brown paint would cover the windshield, making it impossible for the driver to continue, and he would pull over and be robbed. The jar broke harmlessly on the side of the trailer of the truck, however, leaving a splash of brown paint. Kenneth M. Wood probably never even noticed.
After the paint plan failed, they decided to shoot out the tires of the truck. With Cutts driving, Melissa Wagner riding shotgun, and Bibb in the back seat, they pulled alongside and parallel to the truck. Bibb began shooting at the tires of the truck, with no noticeable results. Aggravated, Cutts grabbed the gun from Bibb. While driving with one hand, Cutts fired the gun with the other, as Melissa Wagner leaned forward to get out of his way. One of Cutts’ bullets shattered the front passenger window of the rental car because Wagner had failed to roll it down all the way. Cutts was finally successful, though, in causing Woods’ tires to begin going flat.
The killers then slowed down and let Wood pull ahead of them. Shortly after crossing into Cape Girardeau County, Wood noticed that he had a flat tire and pulled onto the shoulder of the highway. Cutts pulled in behind him, the headlights of the rental car illuminating the darkness. The trio acted as if they wanted to help him change the tire.
As Kenneth M. Wood bent over his flat tire, tire gauge in hand, Ray Lloyd Bibb yanked the .380 semi-automatic from his waistband and shot Wood twice in the back of the head. Bibb and Cutts then dragged Wood into the woods. Bibb noticed he was still breathing and realized he had seen their faces. Bibb shot him twice more through the heart.
Cutts then drove the Midwestern truck to the Central Hardware parking lot in St. Louis, with Bibb and Wagner following him in the rental car. Unfortunately for the robbers, before the arrangements could be finalized for the aluminum to be sold, the police found the truck. The robbery and murder had netted them no gain whatsoever.
Shortly after Bibb’s confession, Curtis Cutts and Melissa Wagner were also arrested. Both gave full confessions. The friend who had lent the gun to Bibb also admitted that he had provided the gun to Bibb and had subsequently thrown it into the Meramec River after Bibb returned it. The fingerprints of Curtis Cutts were lifted from the steering wheel of the Midwestern Distribution truck using the Superglue process.
Ray Lloyd Bibb, Jr. pled guilty to capital murder. Originally, Circuit Judge A. J. Seier imposed the death penalty, but the Supreme Court later reversed the death sentence and remanded it back down to the circuit level for a jury trial on the issue of punishment. The trial was ultimately held in front of Circuit Judge Byron Kinder in Cole County. The jury recommended a sentence of life with no parole.
Curtis A. Cutts also went to jury trial in Cole County in front of Judge Kinder. He was found guilty of first degree murder and armed criminal action and was sentenced to life in prison on each count, to run consecutively.
Melissa A. Wagner pled guilty to one count of first degree murder. She testified truthfully at the trials of both co-defendants. She received a sentence of life in prison.
The Kenneth M. Wood case demonstrates particularly well the benefits of a Major Case Squad. Had a rural Sheriff’s Department with just a few deputies worked the case, it might have been days or even weeks before someone would have had the time to begin checking the lead about the Norma brand ammunition. By that time, Bibb, Cutts and Wagner may have been long gone, their tracks well covered. The case might truly have remained unsolved.
Kenneth M. Wood never made it home on Thanksgiving Day, 1983, but law enforcement officers in Cape Girardeau County and people interested in the history of the Major Case Squad will never forget him.