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Published July 08, 2009 07:28 pm - CARTHAGE, Mo. — Darren J. Winans had been suspected for almost nine months of stealing a rifle Sept. 23, 2008, from the Old Cabin Shop outside Carthage. An accomplice, Zachary S. Townsend, is believed by authorities to have distracted shop owner Robert Sheldon while Winans swiped the gun.  Two men charged in Carthage couple’s slayings w/ probable cause statementsTo read the probable cause statements, click the links to the left By Jeff Lehr and Derek Spellman news@joplinglobe.com CARTHAGE, Mo. — Darren J. Winans had been suspected for almost nine months of stealing a rifle Sept. 23, 2008, from the Old Cabin Shop outside Carthage. An accomplice, Zachary S. Townsend, is believed by authorities to have distracted shop owner Robert Sheldon while Winans swiped the gun. Sheldon, 70, and his wife, Ellen, 71, discovered the theft and reported it to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department several days before they were brutally slain Oct. 11 inside their home next to their gun and archery shop on Black Powder Lane west of Carthage. Townsend admitted his and Winans’ involvement in the theft to sheriff’s investigators 10 days after the murders, according to probable-cause affidavits. The affidavits state that Winans traded the gun to Townsend for some speakers. Townsend told investigators that he later swapped it with another man for eight Oxycontin pills. Townsend, 24, of Jasper, was charged with the theft Oct. 22. But Winans was not, and the couple’s slayings went unsolved for nine months until Winans, 21, 16974 County Road 194, finally was picked up last week in connection with the theft. Sheriff Archie Dunn called a news conference Wednesday to announce that Winans is being charged with much more than theft. He and a Springfield man, Matthew D. Laurin, 19, now stand accused of the killings, each facing two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and a single count of first-degree burglary. Burglary motive? Laurin was arrested Tuesday night in Springfield, and a search warrant was served on his car. The sheriff said at the news conference that investigators believe the two men went to the Sheldons’ property the night of the murders intending to commit a burglary of the business. “I think what happened inside that house was not planned,” Dunn said. “It was a reaction.” The sheriff had described the murders in October as “horrific” and indicative of extreme “animosity” toward the couple. But almost no details of the murder scene had been released, including causes of the couple’s deaths. At the news conference, the sheriff finally acknowledged that the Sheldons were killed with a knife. Probable-cause affidavits state that they were stabbed multiple times. But the sheriff declined to detail the number or location of wounds, saying the double-murder investigation is continuing. The sheriff also downplayed the apparent connection between the theft of the gun in September and the murders the next month. He said the two crimes were related only in the sense that the perpetrators “may have considered the Sheldons an easy target.” 
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