Springfield MO Middle School football coach Craig Michael Wood charged in abduction and murder of Springfield, Mo., girl

Imagine the horror parents feel today that this monster coached their sons football?

St. Louis Today reports a middle school football coach was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the death of a 10-year-old girl who was snatched off a street just blocks from her home in southwestern Missouri as several residents watched in horror.


Craig Michael Wood, 45, also faces kidnapping and armed criminal action charges, according to Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson, who filed the charges late Wednesday afternoon. Wood is accused of kidnapping fourth-grader Hailey Owens in Springfield as she walked home from a friend’s house Tuesday evening.

Patterson said the girl had been shot in the head.

Wood was inside a truck parked at his small, single-story home in Springfield when police arrested him Tuesday night. A probable cause statement released Wednesday said that Wood was holding a roll of duct tape when officers arrived and that the girl’s body was found stuffed inside two garbage bags in a basement where the floor was still damp from bleach.

Authorities will not officially confirm that the body is Hailey’s until after an autopsy, but Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams said “we have a high degree of confidence” in the preliminary identification, which indicates that it is the girl.

More here