Montague family wins $15.1 million in lawsuit

The parents of a Columbia woman who was killed in 1999 were awarded $15.1 million in a wrongful death suit Feb. 22.

Alice Weeks and Roger Montague filed the lawsuit in September 1999 after their daughter, Sheri Montague, was killed by a group of men federal prosecutors dubbed “The Rohrer Group.” Investigators said the group included Bobby Allen Rohrer of Columbia, Henry George Rehmert Sr. of Montgomery City, Henry George Rehmert Jr. of Belle, and Wayne J. Jaegers of Bonnots Mill. The suit was filed in Boone County, but was moved to Cape Girardeau after the defense attorney expressed concern about the amount of media coverage it received.

The four-man group was charged with violating the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act and made a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in 2003. That year, Wayne J. Jaegers and Henry Rehmert Sr. were sentenced to 20 and 27 years in prison, respectively. Rohrer and Henry Rehmert Jr. were sentenced to 29 and 10 years in prison, respectively, in January 2005.

Weeks said she filed the 1999 lawsuit because former Boone County Sheriff Ted Boehm was not doing enough after her daughter’s disappearance.

“If we hadn’t started this civil trial, I believe with all my heart that these guys would be roaming around Boone County swindling and killing people,” she said. “When Ricky Simpson was murdered, there was info in the police files and nothing was done about that. If something was done about that then, my daughter would not have been murdered,”.

Sheri Montague disappeared in 1999 after becoming involved in an investment scam with the Rohrer Group. Court documents stated that Rohrer told Montague, 33, that he was a financial adviser and could double an investment of $41,000 in as little as three months.

Boone County Sheriff’s Department Major Tom Reddin said Rohrer directed much of the group’s activities and was a talented manipulator.

“He was certainly intelligent and articulate, and he was very convincing to his victims of positive results he could provide in investment scams,” Reddin said Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors said that after Rohrer took Montague’s money, she threatened to expose the scam. According to a federal indictment, Montague was driven to a Bonnots Mill turkey farm on June 14, 1999, and shot, then cut up and dumped into the Missouri River. The group also pleaded guilty to the 1998 murder of Rick Simpson, 39. Neither body has been found.

Reddin said that in his 20 years with the Sheriff’s Department, he could recall no other missing person case that received the amount of attention and resources that the Sheri Montague case received.

“It was an extremely difficult thing to get people to cooperate and to get evidence to prove that it was more than just a missing person’s case,” he said.

Redding said the Sheriff’s Department worked with the Missouri Highway Patrol and Osage County authorities during its investigation and continued in the investigation with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Weeks said she was relieved that the trial finally came to a conclusion.

“Probably, I have gotten more closure from this than any event that’s taken place since ‘99,” Weeks said. “I wasn’t expecting to feel that way, but it’s there.”

Weeks said that in preparation for the trial, attorney Art Muegler had asked her to answer questions about her relationship with her daughter. “Digging within myself and coming up with those answers helped a lot,” she said.

She also said that during the trial, she and her family were in a constant state of turmoil.

“You cannot imagine the amount of upheaval,” she said. “You’d be trying to normalize your life, and then something would come up in the trial.”

Reddin said that he could understand Weeks’ frustration. “I mean this is her child,” he said, “and if it was me, nobody could do enough to find out about what happened to my child.”