In the quiet, early morning hours of June 9, 2016, in the small town of Slater, Missouri, a woman's call to police shattered the peace. She reported the sound of gunshots and a man's desperate cries for help. When ambulance crews arrived at the 800 block of Park Place, they found 35-year-old Ryan Sanders unconscious. He had been shot three times in the chest and once in the wrist. Despite being rushed to a nearby hospital, Sanders, a male, succumbed to his injuries and died.
The tragedy deepened later that morning. Around 8 a.m., authorities were dispatched to a home located just north of the Slater city limits, where they made a grim discovery. The body of 83-year-old Bonnie Charlene Hupp was found. She too had been the victim of a fatal gunshot wound. Investigators quickly drew a connection between the two deaths, revealing that Hupp was the grandmother-in-law of Ryan Sanders. Law enforcement believed the two incidents were related.
As the investigation intensified, police sought a white van seen leaving the area where Sanders was shot. They also released a description of a person of interest: a white man, standing 6'1' and weighing 220 pounds. The search for answers led them to a person of interest, and on the evening of June 10, 2016, an arrest was made.
Donald Bruce Owens, a 58-year-old man from the nearby town of Marshall, was taken into custody in rural Slater without a struggle. He was subsequently charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Ryan Sanders and Bonnie Charlene Hupp. In addition to the murder charges, Owens also faced two counts of armed criminal action and one count of first-degree burglary, bringing a suspect to justice in the double homicide that had shaken the small Missouri community.
