[MO] Some system of accountability within law enforcement should have stopped Marvin Rice along his ever-increasing delusional way.

Annette Durham and Steven Strotkamp's lives 

were stolen on December 10th, 2011. 

May angels attend them. 

The news is full of articles titled "Ex-deputy" did this or that, but beyond that Annette lost her life. She lost everything while trying to deal with the father of her son. She lost life - her son, her daughter, her boyfriend, any chance of  anything. Steven, Annette's boyfriend, lost his life too. The articles go into detail about the chase and shootout at a hotel, but don't tell us Annette's plans, fears or premonitions. We learn the shooter's history in law enforcement, but not what Steven was good at or wanted to do. Not what Annette's kids are going to live with - or live without.

Annette and Steven's murderer, Marvin Rice, was a cop in three places before his current job as a state corrections officer. He was fired from the most recent of those jobs and we arent' told and may never know what actually happened at any of them. I can only wonder if Rice had been held accountable instead of shuffled, whether Annette and Steven would be alive. When Rice could just move on from even this last job firing, his idea of what he can do and get away with - his sense of being full of himself - swells. His idea of who he is in this world - bends. Who made the monster? A string of jobs that gave him power over others? Walking away from allegations like a superhero walking through walls? How do you get fired from Dent County Sheriff's Office and hired / entrusted by the State's Missouri Department of Corrections -  given such wide-sweeping power and control over people who are caged and who have little voice? Rice must have felt huge and invincible. He could take his and Annette's 2 year old son by force because force and entitlement are the tools he had repeatedly been given - and still had. He felt he could kill anyone who didn't comply, and thought that after the murders but before the chase that he had the authority to stop by his home and bestow custody of his and - now-murdered - Annette's son to his current wife by jotting some of his God words on a piece of paper.

...The 2-year-old boy was dropped off unharmed with Rice's wife, [K.R], along with a handwritten note saying he intended his wife to have permanent physical custody of the child...

Really? Regardless of anything he surely once knew, he thought that he could do that - murder the mother and her boyfriend and then designate reality for the child.

Some system of accountability and monitoring within law enforcement should have stopped Marvin Rice along his ever-increasing delusional way.

I'm sorry for Annette and Steven, for their people, for Marvin's people. I pray Annette's children are raised surrounded in healing love. Condolences also to Marvin's wife.

Put Marvin in the prison he worked in.

Marvin worked for the Houston (Missouri) Police Department, Texas County (Missouri) Sheriff's Department, Dent County sheriff's department, and then allowed to have a job with the Missouri Department of Corrections as a State Correctional Officer at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking.

GIRL, 6, GIVES WITNESS ACCOUNT FROM SCENE OF DOUBLE HOMICIDE
The Columbia Daily Tribune
By BRENNAN DAVID
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
First-degree murder charges were filed yesterday against a former sheriff’s deputy suspected in a Dent County double homicide that led to a Saturday shootout with police at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Jefferson City. Marvin D. Rice, 44, is charged in Dent County for allegedly shooting and killing Steven Strotkamp, 39, and Annette Durham, 32, at their home in Salem. He also was charged in Cole County with assaulting a law enforcement officer and armed criminal action for his role in a hotel shootout after fleeing from police... His son was with Durham at a residence in northern Dent County along with Strotkamp and another of Durham’s children, a 6-year-old girl. The 6-year-old identified Rice to investigators as the man who forced entry before the shooting. “I don’t like Marvin anymore. He killed my mommy,” she told investigators, according to court documents... After the shooting, the girl told investigators, Rice entered the bedroom where she and Rice’s son were hiding and took the 2-year-old from the residence... [Full article here]

EX-MO. DEPUTY CHARGED IN DOUBLE SLAYING, SHOOTOUT
Associated Press
By David A. Lieb
Dec. 12, 2011
[Excerpts] A former Missouri sheriff's deputy was charged Monday with murdering an ex-lover and her boyfriend and then assaulting a law enforcement officer by exchanging gunfire with police at a crowded hotel near the state Capitol. Marvin Rice, who was wounded in the Saturday night shootout, could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.... Rice admitted in a hospital room interview that he shot Annette Durham, 32, and Steven Strotkamp, 39... Rice also acknowledged firing at police after leading them on a high-speed chase through rural Missouri that ended 70 miles to the northwest at the Capitol Plaza Hotel, which was packed with hundreds of medical personnel attending a Christmas party... He faces two counts of first-degree murder in Dent County, where prosecutor Sid Pearson said... Rice also faces charges in Cole County of first-degree assault on a law enforcement officer, which is punishable by up to life in prison, and armed criminal action... Rice was demanding custody of his 2-year-old son from Durham. He described Durham and Strotkamp as girlfriend and boyfriend... Durham's 6-year-old daughter, who also was at the home, told police that after the shootings, Rice took her 2-year-old brother from a bedroom where they were hiding... The girl then ran to a neighbor, who called authorities...  The 2-year-old boy was dropped off unharmed with Rice's wife,  [K.R] , along with a handwritten note saying he intended his wife to have permanent physical custody of the child...[Full article here]

POLICE SAY FORMER SHERIFF'S DEPUTY KILLED EX-WIFE AND HER BOYFRIEND BEFORE SHOOTOUT
Associated Press
Published December 12, 2011
[Excerpts] ...The night's drama began about 70 miles to the southeast in the rural town of Salem, where authorities say former Dent County Sheriff's Deputy Marvin Rice, 44, went to the home of his ex-wife and her current boyfriend, demanding custody of his 2-year-old son and pulling out a handgun during an argument. Annette Durham, 32, and Steven Strotkamp, 39, were fatally shot. Rice fled with the boy... Rice left his son at his home with his current wife, then took off again in his vehicle, said Wayne Becker, an investigator for the sheriff's computer crimes task force who was called in to help track Rice's cell phone signal. Authorities picked up on Rice's cell phone heading north on U.S. 63, and a chase ensued at speeds of up to 100 mph. Rice may have been headed to a mental health facility at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Columbia, Becker said. The right front tire of his vehicle ran over spikes police had placed on the road near the Osage River and gradually deflated before Rice pulled into the parking lot of the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Jefferson City and ran inside, Reinsch said. A Jefferson City police officer was in close pursuit on foot as Rice entered the hotel lobby and ran past the check-in desk. To the right was a ballroom where an estimated 570 people were dancing at the annual Christmas party for employees of the Jefferson City Medical Group. Witnesses said the gunman turned to the left, toward the elevators and a swimming pool area that had just recently been vacated by members of a visiting youth hockey team from the St. Louis area. Then came a loud sound: pop, pop, pop...  [Full article here]
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