‘No words to describe the anger.’ Demand for justice in Missouri girl’s brutal death
A sheriff’s sergeant in a small Missouri town climbed the stairs of a home there last month and discovered a scene so troubling it continues to haunt law enforcement and the public.
Just five days before Christmas, the body of a 4-year-old girl lay dead on her bedroom floor. A pink blanket covered purple bruising on both sides of her body, from her neck to her feet. Her hair, tied in pony tails, was still wet from when she was dunked in an icy pond hours before.
Her name was Jessica. And the people charged with causing her death told authorities they were beating a “demon” out of her.
“This tops anything that anybody has ever seen, all the way up to the Medical Examiner’s office,” said Benton County Sheriff Eric Knox, who brought in grief counselors for everyone from deputies and dispatchers to the medical crews who responded to the call. “You’re talking hardened, Type A law enforcement guys with tears in their eyes. I’ve seen other folks break down. It’s tough.”
It is for the public, too.
More than a month after Jessica died and charges were filed against two adult neighbors and Jessica’s parents, a change.org petition calls for “special attention” in the case. The petition, signed by nearly 2,400 people, requests a special prosecutor be assigned because organizers do not feel the charges filed so far are enough.
Prosecutors charged neighbors Ethan Mast and Kourtney Aumen with second-degree murder and several other crimes on Dec. 20, the day Jessica was found in her home in Lincoln, about 100 miles southeast of Kansas City.
Four days later, on Christmas Eve, Jessica’s parents James and Mary Mast (no relation to Ethan, according to authorities) were arrested on first-degree child endangerment charges.
The worry, said John Acosta — who created the petition and Facebook group “Justice for Jessica” — is that the range of punishment for second degree murder in Missouri is 10 to 30 years or life in prison. Realizing that, he said, “just made me sick.”
“I could walk past these people in WalMart one day,” said Acosta, who lives in nearby Henry County and doesn’t know any of the people involved. “I don’t want these people getting a slap on the wrist.”
Details of the case are so disturbing that residents are demanding more be done even before the investigation is complete. Dozens expressed that sentiment after signing the online petition.
“The justice system needs to recognize what this poor child was subjected to,” wrote one woman from Pennsylvania. “The people who failed her and who victimized her must answer for their actions. Don’t ever let this little angel’s experience be forgotten.”
According to court records, Ethan Mast and Aumen, who live across the road from James and Mary Mast, went to their home several times over at least a two-week period and beat the family, often with a wooden spoon and sometimes a belt.
Aumen, authorities said, used to live with James and Mary Mast and their family. And according to a police interview with Ethan Mast, Aumen “was made to move out around the first of November.” She then reportedly moved in with him and his family.
Aumen said she thought Mary had a demon in her, according to court records, and that her children would end up like her if it wasn’t taken out.
“Ethan did state that anything he did was in regards to assisting Kourtney with removing the demons or evil,” the probable cause statement said.
The four were believed to have gone to the same church, the sheriff said.
“In their twisted minds religion was a part of this,” Knox said. “But it was not in reference to the church they were attending. It was their twisted version of whatever.”
According to initial interviews with the four, police said that the parents and Jessica and her 2-year-old brother were beaten on multiple days. Another child, an 11-month-old boy, was not injured. The two boys now are in protective custody.
Authorities are still waiting on the medical examiner’s final report. The sheriff said although he doesn’t expect any additional people to be charged, more charges could be added to what the two neighbors and parents already face.
Knox said of the online groups and people behind the petition, “Their hearts are in the right place.” But it’s way too soon, he said, to question any action in the case or fear that authorities won’t do enough.
“We have a group here — Justice for Jessica,” Knox said. “And it’s called the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor. Allow our justice system to do its job.
“Just to put an analogy my dad used to use, ‘They’re hollering before they get bit.’ … We will get justice for this little girl.”
‘The final beating’
The call came into Benton County dispatch at 12:40 a.m. that third Sunday in December. James Mast appeared calm, “eerily calm,” the sheriff said. In fact, it took awhile for the dispatcher to get him to say why he was calling.
While Sgt. Chris Willson drove to the home, dispatch alerted him there may be a deceased young girl at the residence.
But nothing could have prepared him for what he found there.
The sergeant met James Mast, who said the little girl was upstairs. In the probable cause statement that detailed charges against Jessica’s parents, Wilson described the father’s demeanor.
“When I encountered James, I did not observe emotions that I would have expected from a parent whose child was just beaten to death,” he wrote.
Wilson climbed the stairs and found Jessica on the floor, next to a set of bunk beds.
“I observed there appeared to be vomit next to the victim’s head,” he wrote. After lifting up the pink blanket that James Mast told the sergeant he put over his daughter when he found her deceased, Wilson said he saw what appeared to be “belt marks” across her body.
In the affidavit, Wilson described turning to the father and asking him what had happened.
“James said the neighbors came into his house and beat her,” according to the probable cause document.
Other injuries on the little girl included open wounds on her legs, Knox said later, that reportedly were from “old injuries that were reopened in the final beating.”
That beating occurred on Dec. 19, authorities said. Jessica’s parents said the neighbors came over at 8 in the morning and beat their 2-year-old son. James told police that “he and his wife were forced to comply with the beatings.”
While speaking to the sergeant, James Mast said he himself had been beaten with a wooden spoon in recent days. Jessica’s father unbuttoned his pants and showed the sergeant bruising on his buttocks.
“When I observed these, it appeared they were possibly 1 to 2 days old,” Wilson wrote. Mast reportedly was hit with the spoon two days earlier because he said he “had showed compassion for his wife and children.”
Wilson asked James Mast “how he could let people do this to his family?”
He reportedly answered that they were told Mary had a demon inside of her and that their children “would end up just like her if it was not taken care of.” He said he was told that God was talking through Aumen, the affidavit said.
James Mast also said that “Kourtney and Ethan threatened him and told him that if they told anyone, or did not comply with the beatings, they would get the same beatings.” Or he would be shot, James Mast told the police.
“It’s hard to wrap your mind around intelligent adult people that would allow this to go on,” Knox said. “To themselves and to their spouse or to their children.”
At some point late that Dec. 19 afternoon, the adults took Jessica outside to the pond and Mary dunked her into the frigid water, the affidavit said.
“Then they put her up on the bank and left her there while Mary apparently swam a lap around the pond as punishment apparently,” Knox said. Once they got back to the house, the parents reportedly were told again that they could not “render aid” to their daughter.
According to authorities, James Mast said they put his daughter to bed around 6. And after midnight, he went and checked on her and found her deceased.
While at the home, the sergeant also spoke with Mary Mast, who was in an upstairs room with her 11-month-old son.
One side of her face was covered in bruises, court records show.
Mary Mast also told the sergeant that “the neighbors” had come over multiple times and beat her and her husband and two children over several days.
“This has been a huge God thing that they convinced us of,” Mary Mast told the sergeant.
He explained to her that he would be taking the two boys into protective custody. And she said she understood, according to the affidavit.
“Because I shouldn’t have fallen for it,” she said.
Being her voice
After learning late last month that Ethan Mast and Aumen were charged with second-degree murder in Jessica’s death, John Acosta said he couldn’t stop thinking about the case. Or what he already saw as an injustice to the little girl.
“It ate at me,” Acosta said.
That night, the single dad of two who lives in Clinton, Missouri — about 30 miles from Lincoln — couldn’t sleep. He felt he needed to do something for the little girl who died of abuse, alone in her bedroom.
That’s when he created the “Justice for Jessica” Facebook group, which now has more than 1,800 members. The petition came soon after.
“We’re watching this case,” Acosta said. “We’re not going to go away. ... I want to make sure this isn’t something people forget about.”
Since Jessica’s death, there have been two vigils held in her memory.
The first was the end of last month. The second was on Jan. 5, outside the Benton County Courthouse.
Mariah Williams, a county resident who lives in Warsaw, organized that one. A mother of four, three of them between the age of 20 months and 5 years, Williams was “really hit” by the little girl’s death and the troubling details of it.
“I had nightmares for probably a week right after,” Williams said. “I can’t wrap my head around any of it really, the circumstances, the thought processes. ... There’s no words to describe the anger, it really is heartbreaking.”
Organizing the second candlelight vigil was her way to bring together others who were also distraught by the killing. If they needed to cry, she said, they could. And they could say goodbye to Jessica.
“As a community, I feel we’re all grieving in a way,” she said. “I wanted to honor her. And honor what her life should have been. Hoping she could feel all of the love surrounding her.”
Williams, who said she has faith in law enforcement and the prosecutor’s office, has been to every public court hearing for the four suspects.
“We need to be her voice,” Williams said. “We need to let the judges and prosecutor know we are fighting for her.”
She was in the courtroom more than a week ago and was extremely disappointed when a judge granted Jessica’s father bail, set at $500,000. The Benton County jail confirmed that James Mast was out on bond and the other three were still in custody.
Mary Mast, James’ wife, has a hearing scheduled for Feb. 2.
The goal now, authorities and area residents around Benton County agree, is to get justice for Jessica.
At the vigil earlier this month, Williams asked people to bring a stuffed animal like a Teddy Bear. She put those bears in individual gift bags and delivered them to two dozen first responders in Benton County, to give them away on calls when needed.
The idea behind “Jessica’s Bears” is to give comfort to other children when they need it and to remember Jessica.
The Benton County sheriff said he knows his deputies and other county workers in the case won’t forget what they found in the early morning hours of Dec. 20.
“Words don’t even cover standing in front of this beautiful little girl laying on the floor with the wounds that she had,” Knox said. “We see things that people aren’t supposed to see. That we have to sleep with, wake up with, live with.
“There are cases you can leave in the office, and ones that will stay with you the rest of your life.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
