Missouri trooper in handcuffed drowning case slapped with final discipline from patrol

More than 3  1/2 years after a handcuffed Brandon Ellingson drowned in the Lake of the Ozarks, the trooper who had him in custody has been fired, according to Ellingson’s father.

Craig Ellingson said he received an email from the colonel of the Missouri Highway Patrol Friday afternoon saying Trooper Anthony Piercy will no longer be with the agency. The termination comes nearly two years from the day Piercy was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the drowning

“It’s about time,” said Ellingson, who has fought the state for years to get information about his son’s death. “It shouldn’t have taken this much time and this much money to uncover the truth. They knew the truth all along.”

Avoiding a jury trial, Piercy pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor negligent operation of a vessel and nearly three months ago was sentenced to 10 days of shock time in the Morgan County jail. Judge Roger Prokes sentenced Piercy to two years of supervised probation and ordered him to complete 50 hours of community service.

After the September sentencing, Ellingson filed a complaint with the state to have the trooper’s law enforcement certification revoked, a move that would go beyond the firing. Special Prosecutor William Camm Seay also said he would push for that. It isn’t known where that process stands.

Ellingson said Saturday that he had not been aware that the superintendent of the patrol convened a procedural hearing board on Piercy earlier this week. The hearing was directly related to Brandon Ellingson’s death.

Piercy had been on unpaid administrative leave since he was criminally charged in December 2015.

“The board concluded that Trooper Piercy violated the policies of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and that his actions warranted discipline,” Col. Sandra K. Karsten wrote in her email to Ellingson. “The final decision regarding discipline of Patrol employees rests with me.

“Therefore, I am informing you Trooper Piercy’s employment with the Missouri State Highway Patrol was terminated effective December 15, 2017.”

Reached Saturday, a patrol spokesman said he could confirm that Piercy was let go Friday. He did not further comment.

Piercy pulled Ellingson over May 31, 2014, on the Lake of the Ozarks for suspicion of boating while intoxicated. During the stop, Piercy handcuffed the Iowa man’s hands behind his back. Witnesses told authorities that the trooper then stuffed an already-buckled life vest — the wrong one for a handcuffed person — over Brandon Ellingson’s head.

On the way to a field office for more testing, Piercy traveled at speeds of up to 46 mph. At one point, after the boat hit a wave, Ellingson was ejected. While in the water, his improperly secured life vest soon came off. Piercy eventually jumped in to try to save him, but couldn’t.

A toxicology report would later show that Ellingson’s blood-alcohol level was 0.268, more than three times the legal limit. His family thinks the test was inaccurate because Ellingson’s body wasn’t recovered from the water for more than 18 hours.

Nearly four months after Ellingson drowned, a coroner’s inquest determined the death was accidental and the special prosecutor assigned then to the case declined to file charges. During the inquest, Piercy, a veteran road trooper who was helping out on the water, told jurors that he wasn’t trained for what he encountered May 31, 2014.

After the first prosecutor reopened the case in early 2015 for more investigation, she recused herself. In December of that year, special prosecutor William Camm Seay charged Piercy with involuntary manslaughter.

Late last year, the family received a $9 million settlement from the state and earlier won a lawsuit over records. A judge in that case ruled that the patrol knowingly and purposely violated the Sunshine Law by not handing over some information or delaying the release of other documents.

Days after Ellingson’s death in the Gravois Arm of the lake, The Star began investigating. Through interviews and records requests, the newspaper discovered that after Missouri merged the Water Patrol into the Highway Patrol in 2011, some road troopers weren’t adequately trained to work on the water.

Piercy — who at the time of Ellingson’s death was an 18-year veteran of the road — received just two days of field training before he was cleared for “solo boat time.” Before the merger, Water Patrol recruits were required to receive at least two months of field training.

Immediately after his son’s death, Craig Ellingson worked with a team of attorneys to find out what happened that day in May 2014. Brandon’s father said without those attorneys, and a patrol sergeant coming forward with information, his son wouldn’t have gotten any justice. And Piercy likely would still be a state trooper, Ellingson said.

Sgt. Randy Henry, who has since retired, told investigators in the days after Ellingson’s death what Piercy had told him in a phone call the night of the drowning. Piercy’s account to investigators, however, was different, and so was his testimony during a coroner’s inquest.

Henry, who testified twice in front of a legislative committee about minimal trooper training after the merger, was demoted and transferred from Lake of the Ozarks. He has a lawsuit pending against several people at the patrol.

“I owe a lot to Randy Henry,” Ellingson said. “He was crucified by the patrol for telling the truth.”

Now Brandon’s father will work toward getting his son’s death certificate changed. It states that the 20-year-old’s cause of death was asphyxia due to drowning and that alcohol and cocaine use were significant factors.

Special prosecutor Seay is helping him get the wording changed.

“It should say, ‘Died at the hands of a Highway Patrol Trooper with his hands cuffed behind his back and ejected from a highway patrol boat going 46 miles per hour and that his life vest was put on incorrectly,” Ellingson said. “They know that’s what happened.”

This story was originally published December 16, 2017 at 9:53 AM with the headline "Missouri trooper in handcuffed drowning case slapped with final discipline from patrol."