Babysitter Terry Joe ‘TJ’ Volner, Slit The Throat Of 4-Year-Old Dusty Guenther Then Sent A Photo To His Own Mother/Volner sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

December 12, 2011

Babysitter 'slit the throat of a four-year-old boy and sent a photo of his mutilated body to his own mother'


A babysitter has been accused of slitting the throat of a four-year-old boy and sending a photo of his mutilated body to his mother to prove that he had killed the boy.

Terry Joe ‘TJ’ Volner took a series of photos after allegedly killing the boy, including one showing the dead boy's chin propped up by a stick.
Prosecutors said the 22-year-old man took the gruesome ‘trophy’ photos to prove to his mother Tina Miller, that he had killed the Dusty Guenther, the only son of Gina Guenther who Volner knew very well.

Police say that he was jealous of Ms Guenther’s new boyfriend, though it is unclear whether or not she and Volner had ever dated.
Volner was arrested after being found in Guenther's home with a self-inflicted stab wounds.
Love letters from Volner to the boy's mother were found in the home where the killing took place.
Police said the mother's boyfriend had visited the house the night before the toddler was killed. Ms Guenther is the mother of four, and at the time of the alleged murder one of her daughters was in the house but was not harmed.

At the time of the incident, Ms Guenther was at work while her two eldest daughters were at school.

According to court documents, Volner used his cell phone to send pictures to his mother , though why he would want to prove that grizzly fact to her is beyond understanding.

He boasted that he had killed all four of the children as well as Ms Guenther’s new boyfriend, though the three daughters were untouched and no other bodies were found.
One of the pictures of the dead boy showed part of a man's arm with a tattoo, which helped investigators as they said Volner has the same tattoo on his arm.

The victim was found last week in an ice covered lagoon near his home in Wright County, Missouri.
Volner, who was released from prison in March from a three year sentence for theft, had been staying with Ms Guenther on and off since his release.
Sargent Casey Jadwin with the Missouri State Highway Patrol said that Volner confessed to him that he'd killed the child by stabbing him in the neck with a folding-knife.

In addition to a murder charge, Volner faces charges of armed criminal action and abandonment of a corpse.
He is being held in jail on a $1million bond.
Neighbours were left stunned by the boy's death.
‘It was very dreadful,’ neighbour Milt Granier said. ‘In fact everybody cried about it in the community.
‘I was just flabbergasted, stunned because something like this was happening in our community.’

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What is wrong with this world? Jealousy over the mother's boyfriend, so it is taken out on an innocent beautiful child. That poor darling little boy. My heart goes out to his family.

Babysitter, Terry Joe ‘TJ’ Volner, slit the throat of a four-year-old boy & sent a photo of his mutilated body to his own motherPosted in December 12th, 2011 by Cee L R

Prosecutors in Wright County Missouri said a 22-year-old male babysitter killed a four-year-old boy then sent pictures of the child’s mutilated body to his mother to prove that he had killed the boy.

Prosecutor Jason MacPherson said Terry Joe Volner was infatuated with the child’s mother and he was also angry with her for allowing her boyfriend to spend the night last Tuesday.

The following day, while the boy’s mother was at work, Volner, who had been staying with the family, killed her son, Dusty Guenther, then took pictures of the body just before dumping it in a lagoon.

Reports say he then sent pictures to his mother, Tina Miller, proving he had killed the boy. He also told Miller that he had killed the boy’s mother and his three siblings; however, at the time of the crime, the mother was at work and his two older sisters were at school.

It is unclear where his youngest sister was at the time of the incident.

Police found Guenther’s remains in a lagoon near his home off Highway Z in Hartville on Wednesday.

Volner, who tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself after the incident, is charged with murder, armed criminal action and abandoning a corpse.

Police later found love letters that Volner had written to the boy’s mother.

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Posted: Sunday, September 30, 2012 12:00 am
From LDR Staff

A man who slit a toddler’s throat and dumped the child’s body in a sewage lagoon in northern Wright County last December pleaded guilty Friday.

Terry Joe “TJ” Volner was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the charge of first-degree murder by 44th Judicial Circuit Judge John B. Moody. Volner also was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to armed criminal action.

Volner, 22, was charged in the death of 4-year-old Dusty Guenther, whose body was found the morning of Dec. 7, 2011, in a lagoon next to the home of the boy’s family about 12 miles north of Hartville in northern Wright County, roughly three miles south of the Laclede County line.

A probable cause statement said Volner called his mother, Tina Miller, on the morning of the murder and told her he had killed the boy’s mother, her boyfriend, and her four kids. Volner then sent a cell phone picture to Miller of the boy with his throat cut, the statement said.

However, Dusty’s mother and three sisters were not harmed. The mother, Gina Guenther, was at work in Lebanon, her two older daughters were at school and a younger one was in a crib at the family’s home.

Court records list Volner as sporadically living at the Guenthers’ home, and he sometimes took care of Gina Guenther’s children.

The cell phone photos showed Dusty Guenther’s body “in some tall grass with a laceration to his throat and what appears to be a wet stick holding his chin up,” the probable cause statement said. Another picture showed Dusty in the same position. It also appeared to show an adult’s left arm with a tattoo consistent with a tattoo on Volner’s left arm.

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