93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
Preventing domestic violence continues to be a top priority for Columbia Police and for city manager De’Carlon Seewood, who note nine of the city’s 11 homicides last year were domestic-related.
Tomorrow is Zimmer sister station KCMQ’s Atterberry Auction True North radiothon. Columbia’s True North is a comprehensive domestic and sexual violence victim service program.
The issue is personal for KCMQ morning host Shags, who bought a north Columbia home with his fiancée a few years ago. A neighbor came over a few months later and asked Shags if he knew what had occurred in that house.
“It was a jealous boyfriend that broke in and killed the woman in the home while she was on the phone with 911. (The suspect) got into a big standoff with the cops and then ended up taking his own life, so it ended up being a murder-suicide,” Shags says.
The murder-suicide happened in 2020, and the woman who was shot to death was 39-year-old Bobbie Jo Robinson of Columbia. Shags didn’t know about the incident when he bought the home, but he wanted to do something to honor the woman who died, Ms. Robinson. A listener suggested True North.
“I reached out and they gave me a full tour of their facility and their safe house and I got to meet with them. And I was like all right, this is the organization I want to support, I want to do. And it was about a year in the making and last year was the first year we did it with great success. And I’m very proud to say this is our second annual KCMQ True North radiothon with Atterberry Auction,” says Shags.
Columbia’s True North received 3,700 hotline calls last year, providing about 5,900 emergency shelter bed nights. True North had 8,200 transitional living bed nights in 2022.
86 percent of their victims last year were from Boone County. Tomorrow’s KCMQ radiothon is from 6 am to 6 pm.
