A fifth Missouri man has been charged in connection with the alleged kidnapping of a New Jersey businessman last January. Vernon County sheriff Ron Peckman says 56-year-old Roy Slates is in custody at Nevada on New Jersey charges filed after three men kidnapped Jeffrey Muller at Newton, New Jersey January 8. He escaped two days later at Lake Ozark, Mo. where the three suspects, Doug Stangeland, Lonnie Swarnes and Andrew Wadel were arrested. Slates is charged with being an accomplice to kidnapping and robbery and conspiracy to commit kidnapping and robbery. Sheriff Peckman is uncertain when he will be asked by a judge if he will waive extradition to Sussex County, New Jersey.
Newton, N.J. police say the strange saga started when Slates paid $10,000.00 cash to William Barger with orders to fund Jeffrey Muller and recover money Slates lost in a business deal in Utah. Barger was charged in Vernon County on a fugitive warrant from New Jersey and the extradition warrant was read to him by a judge September 7.
Slates is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Vernon County associate circuit court October 28 on felony charges alleging hiding a felony and hindering prosecution inconnection with an alleged home invasion near the Vernon County community of Metz last November. Stangeland, Swarnes and Wadel also face charges in connection with that incident in which Charles Scammell suffered a shotgun wound to one of his hands.
