Local investigators, state police and assistant attorneys general combined evidence in the case against Aaron Malone.
JOPLIN, Mo. — A murder case that began with Barry County deputies answering a possible-abduction call ended in another county with four guilty verdicts, a rejected new-trial motion and a life-without-parole sentence for Aaron Malone.
The prosecution of Malone for killing Aspen Lewis developed through cooperation among the Barry County Sheriff’s Office, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Barry County prosecutor and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. The case also crossed county lines through a change of venue before a Jasper County jury convicted Malone of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence.
The first official response remained local. Barry County deputies were dispatched to an Exeter residence Nov. 25, 2024, after Malone reported that Lewis was missing and might have been abducted. He gave officers verbal and written statements about the disappearance. Sheriff Danny Boyd later said investigators found inconsistencies in those statements. Deputies also encountered evidence at the residence that required a criminal investigation rather than a search based only on the possibility that an unknown person had taken Lewis.
Detective Abby Parsons documented a large bloodstain in the roadway behind Malone’s truck, more blood on the vehicle and disturbed gravel where pieces of jewelry were found. A sample collected during the investigation was confirmed as human blood. Those observations gave the sheriff’s office a physical scene to process while the Missouri State Highway Patrol supplied investigative assistance. The public record does not provide a complete inventory of the evidence or describe every laboratory test, but it identifies the blood, truck, driveway and jewelry as early facts that contradicted Malone’s account.
Investigators also obtained nearby surveillance video. The truck arrived at the residence at about 11:35 p.m. Nov. 24, and screaming could be heard shortly afterward. The vehicle left at about 1:35 a.m. Nov. 25 and returned at about 4:10 a.m. Malone made a 911 call before returning. The timestamps gave officers an independent record of the truck’s movements and created a period of more than two hours in which detectives needed to determine where Malone had gone.
Boyd and Maj. Angela Cole then pressed the immediate issue of Lewis’ location. They told Malone they wanted to find her, and he agreed to lead them to the place where she had been left. Officers followed his directions to a rural part of Barry County near Shell Knob. They found a burned pink wool garment in the roadway and Lewis’ body off the road, covered with leaves and sticks. She had extensive head trauma. After receiving a Miranda warning, Malone admitted an altercation and said he had disposed of the body.
The first court case reflected what investigators knew at the time of arrest. Malone, then 23, was accused of second-degree murder, abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. He was held without bond in the Barry County Jail. As prosecutors reviewed the evidence and prepared for trial, the allegations changed. The state ultimately charged first-degree murder and armed criminal action along with the two original concealment-related offenses.
The change from second-degree to first-degree murder raised the central legal issue for trial. Prosecutors had to prove deliberation, not merely that Malone caused Lewis’ death during an argument. Evidence about repeated blows, strangulation and a gunshot supported the state’s position. Barry County Prosecutor Amy Boxx said the trial showed that Malone hit Lewis in the head multiple times, strangled her and shot her in the head. The Attorney General’s Office described the attack as repeated facial assaults followed by strangulation and a shooting.
The case’s location also changed. Although the investigation, killing and recovery occurred in Barry County, the trial was moved to Jasper County. The public reports do not state the full grounds for the venue change or describe the hearing that produced it. Judge David Allen Cole presided in Jasper County, where jurors were selected to hear the evidence. The transfer changed the courtroom but did not remove the Barry County prosecutor from the case.
Boxx remained the lead local prosecutor and received assistance from Assistant Attorneys General Melissa Pierce and Michael Schafer. The Attorney General’s Office said victim advocate Kara Lindhorst, investigators David Southard and James Tharp and paralegal Jay Turner also supported the prosecution. That structure allowed the county office to retain control of the case while drawing on state personnel for trial preparation, witness support, investigation and courtroom presentation.
Attorney General Catherine Hanaway publicly emphasized the partnership after the verdict. She said her office was proud to work with Boxx to deliver justice for Lewis’ family. Hanaway also said the state would continue joining local prosecutors and law enforcement agencies in violent-crime cases. Her statement focused on institutional cooperation rather than offering new details about the evidence or the defense presented at trial.
The trial began April 14, 2026, and lasted three days. Prosecutors presented the physical evidence from Exeter, the surveillance timeline, the body-recovery evidence, Malone’s statements and the medical account of Lewis’ injuries. Published reports do not identify all witnesses or exhibits. They also do not provide a complete summary of the defense case. The verdicts show that jurors accepted the state’s proof on each separate element of the four charges.
Deliberations lasted about an hour on April 16. Jurors convicted Malone of knowingly killing Lewis after deliberation, committing armed criminal action, abandoning her body and tampering with evidence. The court ordered him held without bond after the verdict. A sentencing assessment was due before June 1, and formal sentencing was scheduled for June 9 at 11 a.m.
Before that hearing, Malone filed a motion seeking a new trial. Cole overruled it, finding no legal cause to prevent sentence and judgment from being pronounced. Public reports do not list each claim in the motion or provide a detailed written analysis of the judge’s ruling. The denial left the jury’s findings intact and cleared the final procedural obstacle before punishment.
Cole sentenced Malone to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder. He imposed three years each for armed criminal action, abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. The judge ordered the three terms to run concurrently with the life sentence. Malone was then returned to Barry County custody until June 12, when he was released to the Missouri Department of Corrections for transport.
The separate convictions reflect how prosecutors divided the events into legally distinct conduct. The murder count covered Lewis’ death. Armed criminal action addressed the use of a weapon during the felony. Abandonment of a corpse covered the transportation and placement of her body in the woods. Evidence tampering addressed actions linked to concealment, including the false account and physical evidence found between the residence and the recovery site.
Not every question about the prosecution is answered by the available public material. The records do not explain why particular evidence was assigned to local or state investigators, how the prosecution team divided witness examinations or what led officials to upgrade the homicide charge. They also do not disclose the full defense theory. What is clear is that the case moved through several stages without changing its core evidence: blood at the home, video of Malone’s truck, his knowledge of the body’s location and proof of repeated violence.
Malone has also been accused in a separate third-degree assault case arising from an incident at the Barry County Jail. Authorities allege that he shoved another person, causing the person to fall against a metal stool and suffer a head wound. That allegation was not part of the Lewis trial and did not affect the life sentence. No final disposition of the jail assault charge was identified in the latest public reports.
The joint prosecution is complete at the trial level. Malone remains in state custody under a life-without-parole judgment, while any further litigation would move into appellate or post-conviction proceedings. No completed appeal had been publicly reported as of July 12.
Author note: Last updated July 12, 2026.