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KSPR Talks With a Grieving Grandfather and the Man He Claims Murdered His Grandson
By
KSPR News
By
Joanna Small
Story Created:
Aug 19, 2008 at 5:31 PM CST
Story Updated:
Aug 19, 2008 at 5:31 PM CST
Two men say they want justice for Jonathan, but one is accusing the other of murdering him.
KSPR News first told you about the Lebanon toddler's death when it happened a year ago.
The baby's grandfather said it was murder, and a year later, the case is still open and he hasn't changed his mind.
Greg Boudonck is picketing to prove his point.
He thinks his daughter's then-boyfriend, David Olson, drowned Jonathan in a shower inside a Lebanon motel where the couple was living.
Olson says Boudonck never liked him and wants to blame him for what he calls "an accidental tragedy."
There is a lone protestor outside the Laclede county courthouse for the second day in a row.
He claims he's not alone though.
“Father, oh God, justice for Jonathan,” Boudonck mumbles as he paces the sidewalk outside the courthouse.
A man inside the building adjacent to it, the Laclede County jail, is the reason Greg Boudonck says he's protesting.
He says David Olson killed his grandson over a year ago.
So Olson's protesting too.
He will be sitting inside the Laclede County jail until his October hearing- but not for murder.
He's here on unrelated charges.
Still, Boudonck claims his daughter's former boyfriend killed her son, then 2-year-old Jonathan Boudonck, in a shower inside this Lebanon motel where the couple lived.
“The coroner thought Jonathan was killed through suffocation, through water,” Boudonck tells us.
“He just fell. I saw him in the process, I went to even catch, but he still had fallen and hit his head on the side of the tub,” says Olson.
Jonathan stopped breathing an hour later and was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he died that night.
Olson calls the death a tragic accident, and the fact is, it has never been ruled a homicide.
But then grandpa wants to know why the case remains open.
Boudonck has a lot of questions and we tried to get some answers.
We went to the county prosecutor's office to find out where the case stands one year later, but after numerous requests to talk to her, she refused.
Later on the phone prosecutor Angie Hemphill-Wright told KSPR News the case is still open and under investigation by her office.
Boudonck says he'll keep picketing until there's justice for Jonathan.
Olson says there already is- the little boy wasn't even his, but he promises he'll keep his son's memory alive for the rest of his life.
Olson and Boudonck's daughter Amy have one child together.
That baby is ten months old, but Olson says he has never seen him and his name is not on the birth certificate.
As for Jonathan's case, the prosecutor had no timeline as to when things will move forward.
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