Six months after a head-on collision on James River Freeway killed three people en route to a funeral and injured several others, a Republic man has been charged with second-degree murder.
Steven A. Jordan was recently arrested and appeared in court Wednesday for three counts of second-degree murder, three counts of driving while intoxicated, one count of DWI, and five counts of DWI resulting in injuries for the late-night January 20 crash in Springfield near West Bypass.
He pleaded not guilty and has a bond hearing set for July 12.
Jordan, 66, was driving a white Dodge truck and was on the wrong side of the freeway, according to investigators, before colliding head-on with a westbound Ford Exhibition that had eight passengers traveling from Texas to St. Robert, Missouri for funeral services.
Jordan had a blood-alcohol level of .211 and had drugs in his system, according to court documents. The legal limit is .08%. The man had an odor of alcohol on him in the aftermath of the deadly crash and beer bottles were reportedly in his vehicle, allowing authorities to obtain a warrant to test Jordan’s blood.
Pulaski County resident Monique Miller’s aunt Sharon Farmer, her cousin Ukena Farmer and her uncle Stephen Figgins were all pronounced dead at the scene
The relatives had traveled to southwest Missouri from Texas to help care for Miller’s father and make funeral arrangements for her mother, Minerva Williamson, who was killed in a car crash in St. Robert.
“My mom is gone. My aunt is gone. My uncle is gone. My cousin is gone. My dad is fighting. My aunts are fighting,” Miller told the News-Leader in January. “Our lives and family will never, never be the same.”