POTOSI, Mo. – Three months after a young woman was found dead near Potosi, her family continues to make their voices heard.
The family of Mikayla Jones is protesting the Washington County Sheriff’s Office as they investigate her death.
“She was an 18-year-old girl with her whole life ahead of her,” Mikayla’s mother, Stacie Jones, said. “And hundreds of people that loved her. She was the sweetest girl.”
The autopsy from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office found drugs in her system indicating that her death was caused by an overdose.
Her mother strongly denies it.
“I told them since day one that my daughter didn’t overdose. I knew that wasn’t right, and I won’t stop until the right people are behind bars,” Jones said.
Jones says the second autopsy that the family commissioned proves otherwise.
She says the forensic pathologist specialist that conducted the new autopsy found no lethal dose of any drugs in her system.
What they did find were multiple contusions and a fractured skull.
Mikayla’s body was found heavily decomposed off Highway M near Potosi.
Two men were charged with abandoning a corpse and tampering with evidence.
“They not only dumped my daughter like trash, they trashed her phone, torched it, and threw it into the river,” Jones said.
But the sheriff says no evidence has pointed to murder so far.
“It’s not that we don’t want to seek justice in this case, we have submitted the reports to the prosecuting attorney, and he has filed the charges that are available to fit the crimes that we can prove were committed,” Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said.
Jones accuses the sheriff’s office of turning away help from the FBI and makes allegations of corruption within the office
“People can look at my record and can prove by my record that we don’t cover things up,” Jones said.
Sheriff Jacobsen, however, says the sheriff’s office welcomes the FBI’s help, but he says there was no federal crime to investigate.
But the Jones family still wants answers and asks anyone that knows something to come forward.
“Anybody that harmed my daughter is going to pay,” Jones said.
The preliminary hearing for those men will take place next week.
Information for upcoming protests can be found on a Facebook page called Justice for Mikayla.
The sheriff’s office says anyone with tips is encouraged to call their office.
