Carthage, Jasper County
Woman, charged with kidnapping mother, released on bond
By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
After nearly three weeks in jail, Delores Forste is free on bond and will appear in court Dec. 26 on charges that she kidnapped her mother.
Forste, 67, was arrested Nov. 20 at her home in Needles, Calif. She was released Saturday night after a $10,000 bond was posted at the Jasper County Jail.
In a telephone interview Monday, Forste said she is staying with members of her husband’s family, Jim and Carol Eldred, in Golden City.
“I really don’t know what’s next, except that I have to be in court on Dec. 26,” she said. “There’s a long way to go, but hopefully the worst is over.”
Forste’s court date could not be confirmed Monday because court offices were closed due to the ice storm.
Forste said she was picked up last Thursday by a prisoner transportation van after waiving extradition at a hearing Nov. 28 in San Bernardino County, Calif. She had been held without bond in California.
Of her time in jail, she said, “You do what you have to do, but it was nice to sleep in an actual bed again.”
Forste was charged with kidnapping after she took her mother, Emma France, 95, formerly of Carthage, home with her in June. She also is charged with financial exploitation of the elderly and with interference with custody. France in May had been made
a ward of the Jasper County public administrator’s office.
France has challenged the charges against her daughter. She said Forste is not guilty of financial exploitation or kidnapping. She said she wanted to go to California and to get out of Jasper County after she was hospitalized and made a ward of the public administrator. She said both actions were taken against her will.
France was made a ward of the county based on testimony in court that she suffered from dementia and depression after she lost nearly $40,000 in lottery scams.
Forste has said she was not notified in advance of the hearing that made her mother a ward of the county. She said she and her husband traveled to Carthage when they could not reach France by telephone and learned from Carthage police that she was in the hospital.
France was living in senior housing near Delores Forste and her husband, Steve, in Needles. France and Steve Forste left last week, and family members are not revealing their whereabouts because they fear that Steve Forste, who faces the same Jasper County charges as his wife, also will be arrested.
“If they did that (arrested him), I don’t know what would happen to mom,” Delores Forste said.
Sandra Meeker, of Danville, Ill., a daughter of the Forstes, said she and a sister are mailing clothing and other items to her mother “since she didn’t get there with much.”
“I was hoping she could spend Christmas with us, but I’m planning to come see her, because I don’t think she can leave the county,” Meeker said.
Guardian priorities
When a guardian is appointed, the court is to consider, as first choice, any eligible person nominated by the ward; then a spouse, parent, adult child, sibling or other close relative; then any other eligible person.
Source: Missouri Revised Statutes
- Carthage, Jasper County
-
-
State budget cuts reduce county funds
County officials are bracing for more state budget cuts to translate into a loss of county revenues.
In an effort to balance Missouri’s budget, the state earlier this year cut the amount it reimburses county assessors for work to determine property values. The budget approved by lawmakers for fiscal 2011 calls for cutting the amount the state reimburses counties to house prisoners bound for state lockup. -
Open house to celebrate projects at courthouse
Projects completed last year at the Jasper County Courthouse will be celebrated in ceremonies Thursday in the courthouse lobby.
County officials will join representatives of local chambers of commerce and others for a ribbon-cutting and open house to mark the opening of a Route 66 display in the lobby and a new “peace star” atop the building. -
Jo Ellis: County home to rare yellowwood tree
In late spring, drifts as white as snow fill the gutters and curbs on the east side of the Jasper County Courthouse. It isn’t snow, of course; it’s the fallen petals of the yellowwood tree that grows squarely in front of the door to the Jasper County Extension office.
-
Jasper County Commission gets building project update
Plans to close out one building project and start another were reviewed by the Jasper County Commission last week.
Darieus Adams, Western District associate commissioner, met Thursday with officials of the firm who designed a $292,400 project to upgrade the lighting and make other changes to make four county-owned buildings more energy efficient. -
Two men running for associate judge in 39th Circuit take case to court
Two men running for associate judge in Missouri’s 39th Circuit began battling it out in a Jasper County courtroom this week.
Jasper County Circuit Judge Gayle Crane heard arguments Wednesday concerning the disclosure of documents sought by Robert “Bobby” George, Aurora, the current Lawrence County prosecutor. -
Unveiling ceremony celebrates CHS tiger
Kandy Frazier, Carthage High School principal, summed it up once the new addition to the CHS campus was unveiled Thursday.
The bronze tiger sculpture created by Carthage artist and sculptor Bob Tommey, she said, is the kind of work that would be found at a big university. -
Carthage sheltered workshop employees protest manager
Workers at Innovative Industries in Carthage ended a walkout Tuesday after protesting the hiring of a new general manager to oversee the sheltered workshop.
-
Carthage hot rod bound for Australia
Don and Rosemary Going’s 79-year-old Chevy pickup has enough life left in it for one more journey. It will be a doozy of a trip, though. The 1931 truck, modified as a hot rod, will begin this week traveling halfway around the world, to the land Down Under.
-
Historic homes offer challenges, but most owners have no regrets
When Marty Ann and Ron Petersen Jr. still lived in Ron’s boyhood home, they would walk through the historic neighborhoods for which Carthage is famous.
“We kept saying, ‘One day, we’re going to live in one of these big houses,’” Marty Ann recalled. -
Unveiling ceremony to bring sculpture to Carthage High
When it is unveiled Thursday at its Carthage High School home, it will be the end of a long journey for the Carthage tiger crafted by artist and sculptor Bob Tommey.
Tommey envisioned the sculpture and built support for it at football games, Maple Leaf parades and other events. - More Carthage, Jasper County Headlines
-
