One of the six prisoners originally charged with kidnapping and killing a man has been sentenced for her involvement in the crime. Carla Jo Ward, 50, faces ten years in prison and five years on supervised release for kidnapping and unauthorized transportation of firearms, according to federal documents from Missouri.
Prosecutors claim the accused all had a role in kidnapping the victim, Michael James Hall, 41, in 2020. He was tied up, cut, beaten, tortured with a blow torch, and finally shot.
It was all over the stolen vehicle.
“Let’s finish this,” one of the defendants, 51-year-old Freddie Lewis “Ol’ Boy” Tilton, wrote to the victim via text message. “… So, why are you trying to aid a rat? You broke a line there, and you will be punished. I would have respected you if you had not been terrified and from the rv when you realized I was coming. Run little scared punk, I will find you. You chose the right one.”
Prosecutors say Tilton and James B. Gibson, 42, directed the heinous assault that began in Lawrence “Scary Larry” Vaughan’s home after Vaughan persuaded Hall to visit.
Vaughan cleaned up the crime scene and concealed any additional damage. According to court records, the conspirators took Hall’s damaged corpse, wrapped it in plastic, and transferred it to another property owned by Russell Eugene Hurtt in Joplin, Missouri.
When police received a report about two weeks after Hall’s kidnapping that a body could be on Hurtt’s property, they went there with a search warrant. Tilton was inside Hurtt’s home when he opened fire on officers who were outside investigating the scene.
Tilton was apprehended by police after a brief standoff and quickly arrested, although not for Hall’s murder.
Several days after the group seized Hall, police arrested Tilton for kidnapping a lady. According to attorneys, Tilton and a guy called Alvin Dale Boyer kidnapped and beat the victim in a hotel room. She narrowly escaped with her life. Tilton and Boyer have been convicted in the second kidnapping.
On July 28, 2020, police found Hall’s decomposed body on Tilton’s property.