In the spring of 1995, Dennis Lee Jones, of Maryville, assaulted and murdered Karen Hawkins, a student at Northwest Missouri State, and a friend of his since high school at Maryville. Jones sexually assaulted her, killed her by strangulation and stomping/kicking her, then dumped her body in the 102 River east of Maryville, near the Maryville City Dog Pound, where it was recovered days later downstream by the Missouri State Water Patrol (now part of the Missouri State Highway Patrol). Before Jones could go to trial, he hanged himself in the Nodaway County Jail.