JACKSON MO. — Camera’s were rolling yesterday when the son of James Clay Waller, a man charged with murdering his wife, confronted a witness for the prosecution outside the courthouse before the two traded some punches.
It happened outside the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse during a 10-minute break from Waller’s preliminary hearing. His son, J.C. Waller, can be seen confronting Matt Marshall, one of the prosecution’s 17 witnesses testifying against J.C.’s old man.
Words are exchanged leading to Marshall punching J.C. in the face. J.C. returns fire and the pair get into a minor brawl. The fight ends when a group of women step in and pull J.C. off of Marshall, who had fallen on the ground. Police arrested both men shortly after.
Check out the video. If you can’t see it because of work related restrictions, trust me when I say you aren’t missing much.
We posted about this case back in July of last year, which I will now recap for those of you who may be click impaired.
On June 1 of last year, 39-year-old Jacque Sue Waller and her estranged husband, James “Clay” Waller, had left a divorce hearing and stopped by Waller’s home to pick up one of the couple’s young children. Jacques has never been seen or heard from since. Jacque’s family were aware of threats made against her by her husband, so they immediately became worried when she did not return home later that evening.
Waller, a former police officer, was staying in a guest house of another man’s home at the time. He told police that his wife had been by that day after the divorce proceedings, but that she had left after they got into an argument and he had accidentally bumped her nose. Well, that’s one of several different versions of what Waller says happened that day.
Police found Waller’s car with a flat tire that same morning, abandoned along Interstate 55. Her purse, keys and cellphone were not found inside the vehicle, but there had been no activity on her credit cards and phone since she went missing. They would later find her purse and cell phones shredded nearby, along with her driver’s license and credit cards.
Jacque’s family was positive Waller was responsible, claiming he had threatened to kill his wife if she filed for divorce and had been harassing her with repeated phone calls and text messages after she moved out of the couple’s home in March. These threats would later be corroborated by witnesses, including Marshall, and Jacque’s own diary.
When this was first being reported, police were calling Waller a “person of interest” and said he was being “less than cooperative” with police. Jackson Police Chief James Humphreys also stated potential evidence was found in his home. This would later turn out to be some of Jacque’s blood splattered in the guest home as well as some bloody hallway carpet found cut up and hidden in the guest home’s crawlspace.
Police believe that Waller killed his wife in the guest home that day, angry over the divorce and the fact that she was seeing another man, then drove her car to the location where it was found before riding a bicycle four miles back home. While he did a piss poor job of hiding the bloody carpet, he did pretty good with Jacque’s body as it still has not been found.
If you want all the details surrounding her disappearance and why police decided to charge Waller, check out the seven page probable cause statement. I found it to be pretty interesting and found Waller to be a giant pos.
To add to all of this circumstantial evidence, a woman Waller had been having an affair with for three years, Casaundra Stringer, worked with police to gain Waller’s confidence after his wife’s disappearance and was even his alibi for a chunk of time the night his wife vanished. Wearing a wire, she captured conversations between her and Waller in which Waller can be heard trying to get Stringer to blame her ex-husband for Jacque’s disappearance.
It wasn’t until Wednesday, in court, that Waller learned that Stringer wasn’t really his girlfriend any longer and was no longer his alibi. I’d love to have seen his face when he realized he would be going to prison for murder. He’s looking at life in prison if convicted. He’s already going through an introductory course, serving five years in prison for threatening Jacque’s sister over the Internet.
Tags: Crime, Domestic Violence, Jacque Sue Waller, James Clay Waller, Missing Person, Missouri
PREVIOUS ARTICLE
Woman Arrested For Harassing Herself
NEXT ARTICLE
Family Of Woman Who Died Sliding Down Hotel Banister File Lawsuit