Fair Grove man faces felony charges after gunshot wound found in child

Yahoo

15-05-2025

DALLAS COUNTY, Mo. — A man from Fair Grove faces several felony child abuse and neglect charges after a reported dog bite of a child led to the discovery of a more serious injury.
According to court dockets, Dustin Lee Stephenson, born 1987, is charged with one count of abuse or neglect of a child causing serious emotional or physical injury, as well as three counts of abuse or neglect of a child, in Dallas County Circuit Court.
The probable cause statement says the incident occurred on April 10, 2023, when law enforcement from the Dallas County Sheriff's Office (DCSO) were dispatched to a location in Dallas County for a child who had been bitten on the hand and in the genital area by a pit bull dog.
The statement says a nurse at Citizen Memorial Hospital's (CMH) emergency room called the DCSO to take a look at the child because they felt there was more to the story than just a dog bite.
The DCSO arrived at the CMH emergency room, where they met with Stephenson and the victim.
The statement says that at the ER, Stephenson told the DCSO he had been putting on clothing when he heard the dog make a 'grunt' type of noise. When he looked up, the victim had blood on her hand and her belly. He told the DCSO that the dog was killed in the residence's backyard.
The statement says around an hour later — after the ER put the victim under anesthesia to perform more cleanup and inspect of the wounds around her genital area — dispatch advised the DCSO that the ER had discovered a bullet lodged in the victim's pelvis area through X-rays.
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Law enforcement returned to the ER, where they were informed that the dog bite injury to the victim's genital area was, in fact, an entrance wound. A projectile bullet was lodged in her pelvis area near her tail bone, the statement says.
The DCSO met with Stephenson and a witness in the hospital room, and neither one could explain the victim's injuries.
Stephenson confirmed he owned guns, and according to him, they were locked in a cabinet. Stephenson said that after the dog bite incident, he had to unlock the cabinet to get a .38 revolver to kill the dog. One of the incident's witnesses fired six rounds into the dog.
That day, the DCSO was granted a search warrant for the residence where the incident occurred. During the search, they recovered a black Taurus .38 revolver and a box of ammunition. They also found a bloody diaper with a bullet entrance hole.
The bullet was removed from the victim at Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis. The bullet had entered her vagina labia and passed through and lodged in her rectum. She was fitted with a colostomy bag. The DCSO retrieved the bullet from the hospital on April 12, 2023.
The DCSO conducted forensic interviews with the other three children who were in the home during the time of the incident. In an interview with one child, he said he was 'trying to shoot the car because the car was mad,' the statement says.
The child said he retrieved the gun from the black cabinet in his father's room. The interview was discontinued after the child provided different accounts of the incident.
When the DCSO interviewed Stephenson, he maintained that he thought the dog had bit the victim and that the firearm from the incident had been locked in a cabinet when he went to retrieve it to kill the dog, the statement says.
Stephenson stated it is possible that the cabinet was not locked, and that it was possible one of the child witnesses had obtained the firearm, had an accidental discharge and shot the victim, and then returned the firearm to the cabinet while he was asleep, according to the statement.
Stephenson is currently held in the Dallas County Jail with a $60,000 bond. He's due in court on June 10.
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