PETTIS COUNTY, MO — James Barton Horn, the man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and her 17-year-old son earlier this week, was shot and killed by police Saturday.
The woman had previously been held in captivity, in a box for nearly four months.
According to authorities, James Horn Jr., 47, was killed in an apparent overnight shootout with police inside an abandoned home in the J.N. “Turkey” Kearn Memorial Wildlife Area just west of Green Ridge, about 20 minutes southwest of Sedalia.
Authorities believed Horn was armed and dangerous and had previously said they thought a friend or family member was helping him stay hidden
Southaven Police Lieutenant Mark Little sent the following statement:
“I have been informed that Mr. Horn was Involved in a shoot out with LEO’S near the City of Sedalia Missouri and as a result Mr. Horn was killed. To my knowledge, no other parties were injured. I am waiting on further info at this time. Thanks for all the help that was provided by our local Law Enforcement and News Media.”
WDAF Fox 4 reports that Police had been trying to find Horn since April 30 when Sutton escaped from the box. According to the probable cause document, police found sleeping bags, reading material, flash lights and a bucket full of urine and feces inside the wooden box where Sandra said she lived. The box was described 100 inches long, 48″ wide and 52″ tall. The box had been sound-proofed but contained a small hole for air. It was found near the southwest bedroom.
Horn had a long criminal history of violence before these incidents. In 1992, when James Horn was 24-years old he was accused, and then convicted of kidnapping and sexual battery in Shelby County, Tenn. His girlfriend at the time said she’d been dating him for about five weeks when she broke up with him. She said she awoke the next day to find him rummaging through her closet. She said he put duct tape over her mouth and hands, and forced her to have sex with him.
Prosecutors filed charges against Horn, who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual battery. He was sentenced and later released from custody March 14, 1995, according to Tennessee court records.
Then in July of 1996, while a divorce was pending between Horn and his estranged wife, he used a ladder to crawl through the attic of the home where she and her eight-year-old daughter were living, according to Mississippi court records. He then locked the eight-year-old in a closet and proceeded to rape and then kidnap his estranged wife.
During the kidnapping, he made her take out money from ATMs before he locked her in a car trunk and took her to Springfield, Mo. He threatened to kill her and repeatedly abused her during the kidnapping. An FBI SWAT team later rescued her at a Kansas City, Mo., motel where Horn had a knife held to her throat.
Horn pleaded guilty to interstate kidnapping and was sentenced to 12 years and 9 months in prison followed by 5 years of supervised released.
He was released in December of 2011 and began his period of supervised released, which was transferred from the Northern District of Mississippi to the Western District of Missouri in February of 2012.
Sandra Sutton’s daughter Cassandra Pottoroff told FOX 4 that she doesn’t believe her mother suspected that Horn was as dangerous as police said he was.
“We was all telling her that she needs to stay hid and stay hid good,” Pottoroff said.
The Pottorffs say family told them that Horn went to Sutton’s parents’ house the night Sandra and Zachary were murdered, thinking that’s where Sandra would be staying. They say he stole a shotgun and stole the car key.
“She was not in protective custody. Several folks have asked that. ‘Why didn’t the police protect her? Why was she not in protective custody?’ The fact is, we didn’t know that she was living in our community and as far as I can tell from checking she has never even sought an order of protection against James Horn,” Lt. Lynch said. “We were not notified that she lived here, neither by her, nor anyone else. No one requested patrols. We were not aware that that type of situation even existed.”
