Suspect implicated in Tavern Creek mystery

This stretch of Tavern Creek — a mile from the Montgomery County line and 300 yards north of Missouri 94 — became a crime scene 37 years ago when Ricky Ridings' truck and body were found there. A quick stop in Portland found no one with clear memories of the case. Earlier this month, a man was indicted on a capital murder charge for Ridings' death.
This stretch of Tavern Creek — a mile from the Montgomery County line and 300 yards north of Missouri 94 — became a crime scene 37 years ago when Ricky Ridings' truck and body were found there. A quick stop in Portland found no one with clear memories of the case. Earlier this month, a man was indicted on a capital murder charge for Ridings' death.

PORTLAND, Mo. - On July 8, 1981, a woman and her three granddaughters walking along Tavern Creek stumbled upon a blue pickup truck that smelled of death.

Inside lay the body of Ricky Ridings, 27, who had to be identified using his driver's license and old scars. A close-range shotgun blast, plus several days of decomposing in the summer heat, had obscured his features, the medical examiner concluded.

"He was practically decapitated," then-Detective Sgt. Ken Bishop, the case's lead investigator, told the Daily Sun Gazette at the time.

The gruesome case dominated local headlines for days, but despite a vigorous investigative effort by the Callaway County Sheriff's Office, it went unsolved.

New suspect

Nearly 37 years later, Callaway County Sheriff's Office authorities think they've found the man responsible for the St. Peters resident's death.

In a May 4 news release, Callaway County Sheriff Clay Chism explained the sheriff's office had received new information about the Ridings murder that prompted a reopening of the case in June 2017. Investigators worked with the Missouri Department of Corrections, the O'Fallon Police Department and medical examiners.

Conrad J. Schmitt III, of O'Fallon, was indicted by a Callaway County Grand Jury on Thursday. Schmitt faces a charge of capital murder, based on 1981 law, and is scheduled to take part in a video arraignment May 18.

Chism said Monday he couldn't yet reveal the information that led his department to Schmitt.

Schmitt currently is an inmate at the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, where he is serving life without parole for first-degree murder and armed criminal action. He was convicted in 1998 in St. Charles County for killing Chester McCarthy, of O'Fallon - found shot in the head Aug. 31, 1995, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.

The prosecutor argued Schmitt had shot McCarthy because he believed McCarthy had stolen drugs from him and acted as an informer.

Early investigation

When Ridings was found - buried under a blanket in his own 1974 Chevrolet pickup, a mile from the Montgomery County line - the Callaway County Sheriff's Office assembled a special task force to take on the case. Members of the Cole, Warren and St. Charles county sheriff's departments; Fulton police officers; and Missouri Highway Patrol troopers were involved.

Ken Bishop took the lead, speaking with law enforcement in St. Louis County, O'Fallon and St. Peters.

He told Diane McIntyre, then-Sunday editor of the Sun Gazette, that Ridings had been reported missing in St. Louis County by his mother June 30, 1981. He bought his Chevy on July 1 in St. Peters.

"The title was found in his pocket," Bishop said in the early days of the investigation.

Someone in the St. Louis area told law enforcement of spotting Ridings alive July 2. What happened between July 2-8, other than Ridings' death, remained a mystery.

"It looks unlikely that the homicide was committed at the scene (where the body was found)," Bishop said. "We've found no physical evidence to support that."

By July 19, he told the press he was "certain" the murder didn't happen in Callaway County.

While Bishop never stated a motive in the killing, he drew a link between it and high-dollar drug dealings in the St. Charles area. Ridings had a prior conviction for sale and possession of "hard narcotics" and served time for those charges in August 1979. Two more St. Charles County charges were pending against him at the time of his death.

Bishop promised to add officers to the task force and search for possible witnesses and suspects.

The trail soon ran dry, the newspaper reported. On July 19, the Sun Gazette announced the dissolution of Bishop's task force. Spokespeople cited a lack of manpower and evidence.

"We had been sending men to the St. Louis area to work on the investigation, and it was leaving just a skeleton crew here to cover the whole county," CCSO Capt. Jim Wilson said.

He added St. Louis-area law enforcement would continue the investigation.

"You can only go so far (with an investigation) and then you hit a dead wall," Wilson said. "That's what happened here."

However, after nearly four decades, that wall may have cracked.

Blast from the past

Bishop remembers the case's conclusion a little differently.

He left the Callaway County Sheriff's Office about 25 years ago. Today, he's president and CEO of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy.

"It's a little different from chasing bad guys," he said Tuesday. "I don't carry a gun anymore, but we're still protecting people."

Despite the many years that have passed, the case stands out in Bishop's mind.

"I was just over in London meeting with United Kingdom regulators recently, and we were talking about things we'd left undone," Bishop said. "I said that back in my law enforcement years I only had one unsolved major case."

That would be the Ridings case, which Bishop described as unusual and "a burr under my saddle."

He said sheriff's officers got in touch with him last summer when the case was reopened. Bishop talked investigators through what he remembered.

"Thirty-seven years is a test of my memory," he added.

With the investigation reopened, there were some details Bishop couldn't discuss. However, he said, Schmitt's name was familiar to him.

"I remember that name popping up back in the day," Bishop said. "I think it's unlikely it's a one-person case because someone dumped the body off and someone had to drive him back."

The sheriff's office's investigation didn't end because the trail went dry, Bishop said. In fact, his task force chased down a suspect across multiple states.

"At the time, the investigation we were doing into that case was causing interference with a federal investigation," Bishop said. "The feds asked us to back off, and we respected (that)."

He wasn't privy to the details of the federal investigation. However, Bishop maintains the belief that Ridings' death was associated with a narcotics operation and stolen car ring.

"May he rest in peace, but Ricky was a pretty active criminal," Bishop said.

Bishop said he was glad to see the sheriff's office, now headed by his nephew, Chism, reopen the case.

"I'm just very proud of the sheriff's department for pulling out this cold case, and I hope they can put a bow on it," Bishop said.

In the years since Ridings' death, his parents have passed away, as have most of his siblings and step-siblings, according to archived obituaries. Two apparently living sisters and Ridings' stepmother could not be reached for comment.

"Although cases may seemingly go cold, we are always looking for new information to assist in moving the case forward," Chism said Monday. "We ask citizens to never assume we know what they know, and if they have any information to assist with any murder case, to please let us know as they may be holding the key to moving the case along."

Anyone with information about the case should contact the sheriff's office at 573-642-7291.