‘He Knew the Whereabouts of That Body’: Ex-Police Chief Faces Retaliation After Accusing Sheriff of Foul Play, Cover-Up in Death of Missouri Black Man
Nathaniel Mueller, a 23-year-old Black man from Missouri, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in December 2024 after his car was found abandoned near a wooded area in northeastern Missouri with the keys still in the ignition, along with his wallet and clothes inside. Despite multiple law enforcement agencies searching the area for days following Mueller’s disappearance, the local sheriff said his naked body was not found until two months later in a pond near a property owned by Mueller’s grandmother, about a mile and a half from where his car had been abandoned. Former Bowling Green Police Chief Ty Bounds (upper left) is accusing Pike County Sheriff Stephen Korte (center) of foul play in the mysterious death of Nathaniel Mueller (far right). (Photos: Bowling Green Police Department, YouTube and family photo) Pike County Sheriff Stephen Korte told local media there were no signs of foul play — but Mueller’s family refused to believe that. He also did not provide a cause of death, and an autopsy remains pending nine months after his body was discovered. "My baby’s face was smashed," Ashley Ashby, Mueller's godmother, told Fox2Now. ‘The Bags Are Getting Bigger’: Trump Starts Snapping at Reporter Over Rising Insurance Costs — But the Concern Flips to an Obvious Sign His Health Is Failing Now, a former police chief who worked alongside Korte in the investigation is confirming the family’s suspicions that there was foul play involved in the death of their loved one — and it involves Sheriff Korte along with another high-ranking deputy. Former Bowling Green Police Chief Ty Bounds is accusing Sheriff Korte and an unnamed deputy of being part of a cover-up regarding Mueller’s death, accusing them of knowing the location of Mueller’s body one month before they claimed to have found it. Bounds is also accusing the unnamed deputy of having a “close, intimate relationship” with a robbery suspect who may have been involved in Mueller’s disappearance and death. “He knew the whereabouts of that body,” Bounds told Fox2Now. Bounds said he resigned in June after facing retaliation for his attempts to blow the whistle on corruption. However, the former chief is still speaking out, telling local media that he was disgusted upon learning a fellow law enforcement officer would be involved in foul play. “Disgust – disgust that one of my brothers could do something like that,” he told Fox2News. Adding to the suspicions of Mueller’s family was the fact that Sheriff Korte refused to answer any questions related to Mueller’s death during a deposition in May, repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent rather than answer basic questions about the investigation. Korte has also been stonewalling local media, refusing to answer their questions about their alleged corruption. “There’s people that know things and they’re not saying anything,” Tammy Mueller, Nathaniel’s mother, told local media. 'I Might Be Getting into a Gun Battle' Mueller, who had a daughter, was last seen on Dec. 20, 2024, in Quincy, Illinois, where he was spending time with friends before he decided to drive down to Pike County, about an hour away, telling his friends he was going to walk in the woods near his grandmother’s property, something he did frequently. His car was found the following day, around noon, in a resident’s driveway, according to the Hannibal Courier Post. The Pike County Sheriff’s Office also claimed in a press release that Mueller may have ingested cannabis edibles. Several law enforcement agencies and volunteer groups spent the next few days searching for Mueller using dogs and drones, and apparently even searched the pond on his grandmother’s property, not finding anything. Chief Bounds said he became suspicious of a cover-up in January following the arrest of robbery suspects, which was when he says he discovered a connection to the robbery and Mueller’s disappearance, according to WGEM. His suspicions deepened a month later when the Pike County Sheriff’s Office announced they had found Mueller’s body in the pond. Bounds said he rushed to the scene to investigate, and as he was pulling up to the pond, the same deputy in question, whom he believed was trying to tamper with evidence, was also pulling up. “I might be getting into a gun battle,” the chief thought to himself as he stepped out of the car, he told Fox2Now. “When he started to approach the pond, I said that I couldn’t let him taint it any further and so I told him I needed to talk to him and to come over and talk to me. So, I disarmed him,” Bounds said. The following month, Bounds held a press conference to discuss his suspicions. "We were able to connect a close, intimate relationship between one of the suspects in the robbery and a high-ranking official in the Pike County Sheriff’s Office,” Bounds said during the press conference. “Corruption and law enforcement eliminate all trust between all law enforcement officers and the communities that trust them to do the right thing.” “As long as I’m the chief of police of Bowling Green, corruption will be exposed and Pike County will never experience this again!” But Bounds resigned as chief three months later after facing retaliation, including accusations he was addicted to methamphetamine when he said he was using a valid prescription for Vyvanse, a stimulant used to treat attention deficit disorder, according to Fox2Now. “I resigned from the Bowling Green Police Department for lack of support,” he said. The case is being investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, but they have not released any details. “Justice still needs to be served,” Ashley Ashby, Mueller’s godmother, told Fox2Now. “I don’t believe any one of those officers should still be able to assist in the community.” Mueller’s mother, Tammy Mueller, is also demanding justice. “ didn’t deserve this,” his mother said. “He was a good person, he worked hard. He took care of me. He made sure I was okay every single day.” Sheriff Korte, meanwhile, appears to be circling the wagons to protect himself from exposure, refusing to answer simple questions that he had already answered in a press release. “Where was Nathaniel Mueller’s body found?” attorney Mark Pedroli asked the sheriff during a deposition in May, with Korte invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. The sheriff also invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked if Mueller had been murdered, which should have been a simple answer if there was truly no foul play involved, as he initially claimed. “The Fifth Amendment is a cornerstone of the judicial system,” Chris Lozano, the attorney retained by Bounds, told Fox2Now. “But when a non-defendant elected official takes the Fifth, it should give us all pause.”
