CLAYTON, Mo. _ A second man has been charged with the murder of slain North County Police Cooperative Officer Michael Langsdorf.
On Tuesday, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell announced that he had charged Kawynn Smith, 58, with second-degree murder. Smith has a previous murder conviction from 1998.
Police say Smith gave the man accused of fatally shooting Langsdorf two checks for more than $6,500 to cash at a Wellston market on June 23.
Smith was sitting in a car outside Clay's Wellston Food Market Restaurant when Bonette Meeks Jr., 26, went inside and tried to cash the checks, police said. A clerk at the market called police, and Langsdorf responded.
Meeks resisted arrest, wrestled with Langsdorf, 40, on the floor of the store, and then shot him, police said.
Meeks, of Berkeley, Mo., is being held without bail at the St. Louis County Justice Center. He is charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action, unlawful possession of a weapon and resisting arrest.
He had been in and out of the North Carolina prison system; records show several pending and dismissed counts of marijuana possession, cocaine distribution and trespassing. A 2011 charge of robbery with a dangerous weapon was dismissed.
Smith is being held without bail. Bell called him a flight risk _ St. Ann Officer Ellis Brown said in charging documents that Smith said "he was not going back to prison."
Smith pleaded guilty in 1998 to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years, according to court records. In that case, he was one of three people who police said shot a man in the head with a shotgun just south of Potosi and took the man's truck and money.
Smith is a registered sex offender, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol. He was convicted of sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl in 1985 when he was 23.
He also has a history of writing bad checks.
Charging documents said that Smith gave two checks to Meeks to cash, one for $500 and one for more than $6,000. Both were made out in the names of other people.
Meeks' family has released a statement apologizing to Langsdorf's family and friends.
