Manslaughter charge filed in shooting outside Columbia Mall

Boone County prosecutors charged a Jefferson City man Monday with involuntary manslaughter in a 2017 shooting death in the Columbia Mall parking lot.

Scott R. Randolph told police he was putting his gun, a 9 mm pistol, in a holster when it fired, striking Jeffrey Swope in the eye while inside a vehicle in the lot late on the eve of Black Friday, Nov. 23, 2017, according to a probable cause statement filed in the case.

Swope died days later at the hospital from a gunshot wound to the head.

Police found the gun strapped into its holster in the passenger floorboard of the vehicle Randolph and Swope had been in, according to the statement. However, police found no signs of damage to the holster and the Missouri State Highway Patrol Crime Lab was unable to fire the gun in three similar holsters without damaging them, the statement said.

It wasn’t clear whether Randolph had been arrested Tuesday evening. Online court records show an arrest warrant was issued Monday. No lawyer was listed for Randolph in online court records.

Randolph was charged with a single count of first-degree involuntary manslaughter.

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