Photo: Tylor Rynard
A suspect in the 2018 murder case of 73-year-old Lawrence C. Brostedt of Ozark County has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The Ozark County Times reports 34-year-old Tylor Rynard of Squires entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery Friday in Phelps County Court, where the case was transferred on a change of venue.
Rynard was sentenced to 25 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) on each count. The counts are to run concurrently. Rynard will begin serving the time following a five-year probation violation sentence in an unrelated Douglas County drug case. Since the crimes are considered “dangerous felonies” by the court, he is required to serve at least 85% of the sentence, or more than 21 years, before he is eligible for parole.
The guilty plea was made as part of an agreement with the state, represented by Ozark County Prosecuting Attorney John Garrabrant. Rynard was represented by David Hoskins and Kevin Gau of St. Louis.
Rynard was arrested by the U.S. Marshals in Orlando, Florida, after arrest warrants were issued on April 30, 2018. Deputies from the Brevard County, Florida, Sheriff’s Department executed a search warrant on Rynard’s hotel room in that area, where he was reportedly staying with a woman. Officers reportedly found a .40 caliber handgun that produced ballistic similarities to a bullet found at the murder scene. They also found a ring of keys matching locks at the Brostedt home.
Rynard had two co-defendants in the case: Holly Lucas and Michael Smith, both of Mansfield.
Lucas pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in the Missouri DOC on each count. The counts are running concurrently. Because the charges are considered violent felonies, Lucas is required to serve at least 85%, or 8 1/2 years, before she is eligible for parole.
Lucas made her guilty plea as part of an agreement with the state in which she agreed to give her truthful testimony against Rynard, if his case went to trial.
The third co-defendant, Michael A. Smith, has been charged locally with conspiracy to robbery in connection with the case. However, when he was arrested in the Brostedt case, officers found images of child pornography on his cellphone. He is in the custody of federal authorities, facing charges in relation to the reported child pornography.
According to court documents, the Mountain Grove Police Department (MGPD) called Ozark County authorities on April 30, 2018, reporting an officer there had stopped Rynard in Mountain Grove for a traffic violation and found Brostedt’s bank checks in the car. The call prompted Ozark County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Curtis Dobbs to make a well-being check at 290 Up Hill Lane, off Missouri Route JJ northeast of Thornfield, where he found the body of Brostedt.
MGPD called Dobbs after a MGPD officer arrested a man for an unrelated incident and found two of Brostedt’s checks on the suspect. MGPD was unsuccessful in trying to reach Brostedt by phone and called the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office to ask if officers could visit his house.
When Dobbs arrived on scene, he immediately noticed the home appeared to have been burglarized. According to the probable cause statement in the case, furniture was turned over, and cabinets appeared to have been gone through.
“Fearing someone may be in distress and in need of assistance, I gained entry through an exterior door,” Dobbs wrote in the report. When inside, he noticed two TVs appeared to be missing from the living room and bedroom, with dust rings around where the bases would normally have sat.
Officers immediately noticed a pungent odor consistent with that of decaying human remains, the statement says. When officers lifted a blue tarp in the middle of the garage floor, they found blood stains on the floor and what appeared to be a body wrapped up in a second tarp bound with ropes and straps. Officers removed a section of the tarp and found the body of a man that matched the description and photograph the officers had of Brostedt.
Brostedt’s body had what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the upper right front of the head, the statement says. Officers processed the garage for additional evidence and designated the area as an active crime scene. The residence was also processed for evidence, the statement says. During the course of the investigation, officers determined that a white Ford F-150, a Kubota UTV and several firearms belonging to Brostedt were missing from the residence.
Smith reportedly told Dobbs he and Rynard had devised a plan to rob Brostedt, whom the two men had worked for in the past. Smith said they believed Brostedt had a lot of cash at his residence, along with several firearms. Smith said on April 19, 2018, the pair drove to Brostedt’s home to stake out the place and create a plan, according to the probable cause statement. They returned the next night, Smith said, walking through a field to gain access to the property.
Smith reportedly told the officers he had brought a knife, and Rynard brought a 40-caliber pink semi-automatic pistol. Smith said the two men walked all the way up to the garage, watching for Brostedt, but Smith said he lost his nerve and told Rynard he couldn’t go through with it. So the two left, and Rynard dropped Smith off at a gas station in Mansfield, the statement says.
Smith said a couple of days later, he met Rynard, who was driving a white Ford F-150 pickup with an orange side-by-side UTV in the bed. Authorities would determine the vehicles were taken from the Brostedt residence. Smith said a Winchester 30-30 rifle, a single-barrel shotgun and a revolver with a long barrel were in the backseat of the truck.
Smith said Rynard told him he had gone back to Brostedt’s residence, lured Brostedt into the garage and shot him in the back of the head, wrapped his body in a tarp and left it in the garage, the statement says.
Lucas reportedly said in a written statement she was at the Brostedt property the morning Rynard shot and killed the 73-year-old man. Lucas said Rynard had used her pistol to shoot Brostedt. She also wrote that after Brostedt was killed, she cleaned up the murder area with buckets of water and ammonia, while Rynard wrapped the body in the tarps.
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