The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • A8

authorities need to step up and do something. How long are we supposed to LARRY MCCULLOUGH On Tuesday, Sandra attorney, John Dale Wiley, called the case a rife with wild tales and untruths. have heard every rumor and innuendo Wiley said in an email. The attorney, Richard Lee Anderson, says alleged elements of the case an affair, an attempt to hire a hit man, a misfired shotgun all point to the Klemps. all the lawyer said, hard to conclude anything Acivil trial had been set to begin last week, but a judge granted a late request for a change of venue for a case filed in 2006.

That delay infuriated Gary kin. They say put up with about all the waiting they can handle. On Day, they got together and talked about what they needed to do to get authorities finally to act. never going to find abody. This case is as good as ever going to said brother Larry.

authorities need to step up and do something. How long are we supposed to In arguing against the motion for change of venue, Anderson contended that the request missed a deadline and quickly upon the of a subpoena of a man the suit says told law enforcement that Kristopher Klemp tried to hire him to kill Gary McCullough. That man is now seriously ill and may not be available for a future trial, Anderson wrote. The lawsuit contends McCullough was killed for his horses, cattle, land and coon dogs. It seeks money for his daughters.

But the family says what it really wants are criminal charges. Barry County Sheriff Mick Epperly says the case includes plenty of circumstantial evidence. But the lack of key physical evidence no body, no murder weapon has stymied any criminal case. The best chance authorities may have had for that rested with one of Sandra daughters from a previous relationship. The sheriff and family members say they heard atape recording in which the girl said her mother told her she had killed Gary McCullough and made her help clean up the mess.

But that daughter, Liehnia May Chapin, 12 years old at the time her stepfather disappeared, went missing soon after telling and then recanting that story. Like Gary McCullough, she been seen since. think going to find either the sheriff said recentlyin his office in Cassville. Epperly said that at one point in the investigation, Sandra Klemp told him that if he finds a body take a polygraph. she dared the sheriff said.

knew I going to find The case file, thick as a concrete block, sits open on a wooden stand in his office. Barry County Prosecuting Attorney Johnnie Cox reject the accusations, but he believes that without physical evidence, criminal charges may never be filed. know if what we need is out Cox said. Klemp and her husband now live in Salem, Mo. Efforts to contact them for this story were not successful.

Kristopher lawyer, John Lewright, return calls seeking comment. The lawsuit says that when Gary McCullough went missing, Sandra denied any affair with Kristopher Klemp and said she was happily married. Sandra report her husband missing. His employer did that. The lawsuit says that when authorities asked Sandra about him, she said Gary left go buy a fighting rooster from a and she seen him since.

Afew miles south of Shell Knob, a narrow blacktop takes off east from Missouri 39 to curve through rocky farmland toward Table Rock Lake. where find the McCullough clan. Ella and her husband, Wayne, raised five sons, and none got too far from home. Three of the surviving four still live on the farm, and the other one is just down the road. own everything from here to them Albert McCullough said recently in the barnyard as he pointed north.

But confuse this bunch with land barons. They wear beat-up boots and sweat- stained caps. They get dirty. Milking cows, raising pigs, coon hunting. This is the kind of place with chickens out back, and where pigs and heifers share the same corral.

Larry, the oldest, is the only one to go to college. On a basketball scholarship. He now teaches school, but he and his wife, also a teacher, live on the property in a cabin that they built themselves with logs they hauled from Arkansas. Albert, the second oldest, does the farming but says make more money if rocks were worth something. In addition to milking 60 or so cows, he runs a feed store on the property out of a120-year-old white house near the road.

A dozen brown eggs will set you back $1.50. brought her Albert said of Sandra Klemp. The words came suddenly, like an admission of guilt. married the woman first. Worst mistake ever made, he said.

He swears he did his best to talk his brother out of getting involved with Sandra, telling him, making a hell of a Still, Gary and Sandra married in December 1996. They bought a place not too far away, near Butterfield in Barry County. Eighty acres, mostly scrub land. Gary cleaned it up. He bought cattle and horses, and he worked at a chicken-processing plant to make ends meet.

By spring 1999, the lawsuit claims, the marriage had soured. According to the lawsuit, Sandra attempted to shoot Gary on April 30, 1999. gun go said Darrell Center, a friend of He said Gary told him about the incident, which is also referred to in the lawsuit. Most people might have stayed away after that. was too Center said.

The suit, filed a year after Gary was declared dead in 2005, also lays out the beginning of an alleged affair between Sandra and Kristopher Klemp, who is 10 years younger than her. In a office report cited in the lawsuit, the recently subpoenaed man tells investigators that Kristopher Klemp approached him about killing someone. Another report mentioned in the suit includes comments from a woman who told detectives that Klemp told her that he was involved with a married woman. That married woman, according to the report, had said figure out a way to kill her husband and dispose of the body so no one would ever find it. The wrongful-death suit also names missing daughter, Liehnia Chapin, and former wife, Jennifer Brattin, as defendants.

It says Brattin knew of the affair between Sandra Klemp and her then-husband, and that she gave him a ride during the time of Gary disappearance. Brattin could not be found for comment, and court officials say she has not filed a legal reply to the suit. Her attorney did not return a phone call. Within weeks of disappearance, then- Barry County Prosecutor Stephen Hemphill charged Kristopher Klemp with conspiracy to murder. That charge was dropped, however, later that summer.

Hemphill, now living in Liberty, told The Star on Thursday worried that laying out his case at a preliminary hearing could hinder the ongoing investigation. After the civil suit was filed, the Klemps challenged the case on grounds of expired statute of limitations and argued it should be dismissed. That motion, since denied, contended the calendar on a civil case should have started with Gary disappearance in 1999. The plaintiffs countered that statute of limitations relates to him being declared dead in 2005. Ella McCullough, 75, last saw her son on Day 1999 when he came over to borrow amale hog to breed his sows.

She said he told her that day that he feared for his life. She told him to stay there; just go home anymore. think he only went home because of his cows and Larry McCullough said. was scared what she would do to For months after Gary disappeared, his father, Wayne McCullough, a big, strong, no- nonsense dairy farmer, sleep or eat. The lack of action in the case caused Wayne to get barred from the Barry County office.

He might have ended up in jail that day if a relative dragged him out. Wayne, who would often go looking for Gary after milking, died of a heart attack while sitting on the front porch. Now in that same house, mother still cries for her son. want my Ella McCullough said recently as Brown Swiss and Jersey cows grazed on her farm and green apples weighed down a tree just outside the kitchen door. time to bring him Joy Backes, 28, one of daughters who brought the lawsuit along with her sister, April, has no doubts her grandfather would be alive today if not for her disappearance.

know this thing killed said Backes, a trauma nurse in Sioux Falls, S.D. grandma is a strong lady. And my uncles have worked so hard to get something done for my dad. But this has just gone on long Like others, Backes thinks Liehnia Chapin held a key to the case. Albert McCullough, brother, tells the following story: A few years after disappearance, Liehnia, 16 or so at the time, went with a boy down to the river to drink some beer.

After a few, she told the boy a story about what had happened with Gary. The boy told her she needed to tell someone else. She chose Albert her former stepfather. When she recounted what had happened, Albert McCullough told The Star, he secretly taped her. The lawsuit mention the 2003 recording, yet cites things that family members and the sheriff say come from the tape.

According to family members, their attorney and the sheriff, Liehnia can be heard on the recording saying that her mother told her she had shot Gary three times in the head while he sat on the couch eating scrambled eggs. Liehnia said she helped her mother clean up blood from the floor, the suit claims. They wrapped the body in plastic and burned it in a brush pile, according to the suit. Later, she and her mother dug through the top six inches of the ground beneath the fire, looking for bone fragments that they then scattered, the lawsuit alleges. Albert McCullough took the tape to authorities.

But Liehnia soon recanted, say the prosecutor and the sheriff, saying she had been mad at her mother and made the whole thing up. Liehnia soon disappeared and has not been seen since. She is considered a by law enforcement. About a month ago, Epperly drove to Salem to talk to Sandra Klemp about Liehnia her own daughter. talk to he said.

would love it if Liehnia would show up. But that not coming Wiley, Sandra attorney, said he has no idea what happened to Liehnia Chapin or Gary McCullough, and that he is ready to refute everything in the lawsuit. will need more than rumors and innuendo when they get to he said. In granting the motion for a change of venue, Barry County Judge Carr L. Woods wrote that because of the nature and extent of the articles in local newspapers and social media, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to select a fair and unbiased Unbelievable, said Backes, the daughter who brought the suit.

always been publicity around this Backes said. all this time, they figured that out at the last Very disappointing, said Richard Lee Anderson, the Branson attorney, who was in Kansas City delivering subpoenas when he learned of the delay. had worked very hard for this trial and we were said Anderson, a family friend who played basketball for Wayne McCullough at Blue Eye High School. For now, the family waits. A couple of weeks and his brother Larry drove a pickup to the McCullough Cemetery just down the road from the farm.

They visited the graves of their father, and that of the relative who pulled Wayne out of the office the time he ended up getting barred from the place. It was a pretty day up on the cemetery hill. Sunshine, a light breeze, the water of Table Rock Lake off through the trees. should be here, but he never will Larry said in the shade. going to get him a stone Albert said.

all we Then they headed back home. Cows waited. Milking time. To reach Donald Bradley, call 816-234-4182 or email MISSING: After 13 years, family looks for justice from civil lawsuit FROMA1 PHOTOS BY KEITH MYERS THE KANSAS CITY STAR Relatives of Gary McCullough gathered recently at the home of his brother, Albert McCullough (second from right), just south of Table Rock Lake. Included in the gathering were another brother, Larry McCullough (from left), Dennis Allen, Jay Allen and Debi Waterman.

Sandra Klemp Kristopher Klemp Gary McCullough Liehnia Chapin THE KANSAS CITY STAR Kansas City St. Louis Springfield Jefferson City Columbia St. Joseph SHELL KNOB Ella eyes filled with tears as she talked about her missing son, Gary McCullough. want my boy time to bring him A8 FROM THE COVER THE KANSAS CITY STAR..