Court document: Former Joplin police officer chats about abducting, torturing, beating, sodomizing child

During a chat session, former Joplin Police Department officer Gary McKinney described in graphic detail how he would kidnap an underage girl, beat her, then sodomize her.

Details of that chat session were revealed in a detention motion filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

In another chat session with a user identified as an adult male, McKinney and the other user talk about abducting a female child and taking her to a warehouse to keep her. The two also discuss torturing the child, hanging her from the ceiling (detail omitted) and engaging in sex with her. They talk about breaking into the child’s bedroom to abduct her, using chloroform to render her unconscious. McKinney reports he would beat the child “first thing”. They talk about orally sodomizing her until (details omitted)

McKinney, 43, the owner of Gary McKinney Plumbing in Joplin and also a former officer with the Webb City and Duquesne police departments is being held in the Greene County Jail on charges of sending and receiving child pornography and the detention motion makes it clear that's exactly where the government wants him to stay.


"There is a serious risk that the defendant's release will present a substantial risk to the community," Assistant U. S. Attorney Ami Harshad Miller wrote, adding that there were no conditions that "will reasonably assure the appearance of the defendant as required and the safety of other persons and the community."

The motion repeated the details that were provided in the probable cause affidavit including McKinney's alleged interest in streaming sex shows involving underage girls, exchanging child pornography with Anthony Helsel, 31, Joplin, and asking Helsel to provide him with shoes and socks that had been worn by the four-year-old girl whom Helsel allegedly had sex with in some of the pornography he shared with McKinney.

McKinney also expressed an interest in meeting with the four-year-old himself and engaging in a sex act that would involve her feet, the detention motion noted.

The detention hearing has been scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday in Springfield.

The government is also asking that Helsel (photo at left) be kept behind bars while awaiting trial, noting that the four-year-old that he allegedly molested told a forensic interviewer at the Children's Center that Helsel not only did things to her on numerous occasions, but also let "another Anthony" do something with her while he waited outside in the hall.

Helsel's detention hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday in Springfield.