Osage Beach man sentenced in connection to a 2019 statutory rape

CAMDEN COUNTY, Mo. (KY3) - A man from Osage Beach will spend 30 years in prison in connection to a 2019 statutory rape.

According to the Camden County prosecuting attorney’s office, 30-year-old Marquecio Devonte Simmons pleaded guilty to first-degree statutory rape involving the abuse of a girl under 12 years old.

Simmons was sentenced on January 9 by Judge Matthew Hamner.

According to court documents, Simmons had sex with an 11-year-old girl in his neighborhood. In January 2020, the girl miscarried a baby fetus, a male 24-26 weeks old, in the bathroom of her home.

The girl told investigators she was having sex with a boy from down the street but did not give any other information. Investigators swabbed the fetus, the girl, and Simmons for DNA and sent the samples to Columbia for criminal paternity testing.

Court documents show a couple of days later, the lab results confirmed that Simmons could not be excluded as the biological father. The report stated, “the probability of paternity is 99.999%.”

Investigators then arrested and interviewed Simmons, he agreed that it must have been him who had sex with the 11-year-old, but he didn’t remember it. Simmons told investigators he often had sex with his wife while asleep.

Court documents show that there had been previous reports filed involving Simmons and the girl by Missouri Children’s Division. Workers with Children’s Division told Camden County investigators that hotline calls were made with concerns that Simmons was touching the girl and had she “missed his snuggling.”

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