Apr. 8—NEOSHO, Mo. — The Newton County prosecutor cited a communication issue with a key state witness as the reason for a decision this week to dismiss eight felony counts filed on a Joplin man in a kidnapping case in January.

John A. McGonigle, 37, had been facing two counts of first-degree kidnapping, three counts of armed criminal action and single counts of second-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm prior to their dismissal Monday in Newton County Circuit Court.

Prosecutor Will Lynch indicated that his office most likely will be refiling the charges once the communication issue is resolved.

McGonigle was charged with holding a couple at his residence on Eloise Lane by gunpoint for a couple of days, binding their wrists for part of the time and assaulting them or forcing them to hit each other while threatening to kill them, according to a probable-cause affidavit.

The couple had gone to the defendant's home on Jan. 17 and returned there again the next day when they were told by McGonigle that they could stay on the property if the man did some work there. The night of Jan. 19, McGonigle and a woman who was there with them got into an argument and left. The defendant returned a couple of hours later with an unidentified man.

While his girlfriend was asleep inside the residence the male victim spotted a bonfire and went out and joined McGonigle and the man who had come back with him. The defendant purportedly began claiming the victim's sleeping girlfriend was a snitch and he and the other man slammed the victim into the side of a pickup truck before marching him back inside the residence at gunpoint.

McGonigle then told the victim that he was to kill his girlfriend and when she woke up, the two men purportedly bound the couple's wrists, and McGonigle began slapping her. After suffering additional abuse at the two men's hands, the couple were allowed to go to sleep in a bed until the early morning hours of Jan. 20 when the male victim managed to talk McGonigle into taking them to a liquor store to get cigarettes.

While at the store, the male victim spotted a small sledge hammer in the back of the truck they were in and tucked it inside his sweatshirt. As they all started to leave the store in the truck, he hit McGonigle twice in the head with the hammer, and the couple fled back inside the store and sought help, according to the affidavit.

McGonigle had been sent to prison for five years in 2019 for a domestic assault of a girlfriend in jasper County.

Jeff Lehr is a reporter for The Joplin Globe.