MOIA is organized exclusively for educational, fraternal and professional purposes. It promotes the free exchange of inter-agency information necessary to effectively carry out the work of the association members. It also provides continuing educational opportunities for governmental personnel engaged in investigative work and enhances the status of investigative work as a profession.
PRESIDENT
Bill Willoughby, Platte County Prosecutor’s Office
Bill retired with the rank of Captain from the Gladstone Department of Public Safety after 30 years of service. During his tenure Bill worked as a patrolman, a detective, and a field sergeant. Bill was a firearms instructor, department armor and defensive tactics instructor. Bill was a member of the tactical unit and served as one of the tactical commanders.
Bill attended the Administrative Officer’s Course at the Southern Police Institute in Louisville, Kentucky and the Missouri Police Chiefs Command College in Jefferson City, Missouri as well as many other courses.
Prior to working in Gladstone Bill worked for the Platte City Police Department and the Platte County Sheriff’s Department. Bill has been working in law enforcement since 1977.
VICE PRESIDENT
Darren Dake, Crawford County Coroner/Death Investigation Training Academy
Darren Dake is a law enforcement professional with over 35 years’ experience in criminal and medicolegal death investigation. Darren has worked in both the law enforcement realm of investigations as well as in the role of senior investigator with the Coroner’s office for over 24 years. Darren is now the elected Coroner for the county he serves. This combined investigative experience has uniquely established Darren as an expert in investigations which allows him to consult and teach internationally on investigation practices and procedures.
Darren holds national certification as a Medicolegal Death Investigator through the American
Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators (ABMDI), as well as being a nationally certified
criminal investigator and certified criminal investigations instructor. Other accomplishments include the founding of the Death Investigation Academy as well as other investigator focused resources such the Coroner Talk Podcast. Darren has also published
several books related to investigations; Investigating Suicide and Self-Harm Deaths, Interviews and Interrogations- getting the information you want, and Autoerotic Fatalities – a guide to investigating and interpreting the scene. Darren also co-authored the book CODE-Living healthy, happy, and whole submerged in tragedy, trauma, and death.
SECRETARY / TREASURER
Denetta Amor, Higginsville Police Department
Denetta started her Law Enforcement career with the Higginsville Police Department in May, 1997. She has been a Police Officer there since 2004. She has been certified as a Crime Scene Investigator since 2004 and is a member of the Lafayette County Crime Scene Team. Denetta currently coordinates a County-Wide Law Enforcement Day for all DARE age students and is involved in other community activities. She has additional training in Interview and Interrogation, Crisis/Hostage Negotiation, Crisis Intervention, Fraud and Financial Crimes and various other courses.
Denetta is a currently a member of the Rural Major Case Squad and serves as Secretary-Treasurer for the Missouri River Valley Citizens Advisory Board. She is active in her community in other civic organizations and is a Reserve Deputy for the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Office and Odessa Police Department.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Les Kerr, US Attorney’s Office
Les has served as the Law Enforcement Coordinator in the US Attorney’s Office, Western District of Missouri, Kansas City, since November 13, 2001. He has been instrumental in the implementation of numerous innovative programs for the Weed & Seed Strategy, Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, Missouri Drug Endangered Children Program and the Human Trafficking Rescue Project. He is currently the Chief of the Law Enforcement Relations Unit, which includes all Law Enforcement Coordination activities as well as the Victim Witness Staff and Community Outreach. He is the Executive Board Member from Missouri for the Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center (MOCIC), one of the 6 RISS Centers.
Prior to joining the US Attorney’s Office, Les was the Criminal Investigator for the Platte County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and an officer with the Riverside Police Department in the Kansas City area. Les has been a member of the MOIA since 2001 and is the longest serving president in the history of the association.
Cody Brewington, Missouri State University Public Safety Training Center
Cody has attended the Missouri State Investigator Conference since 2009. He works at Missouri State University in the Noncredit Outreach Department and offers the POST Law Enforcement and Private Investigator Continuing Education for the annual conference. He graduated from Missouri State in 2011, with a Master’s Degree in Criminology and a certification in Homeland Security and Defense. Cody became a member of the MOIA Executive Board in 2013. He currently is in charge of the MSU Public Safety Training Center located in Camdenton, Missouri. The PSTC offers courses to law enforcement, dispatchers, evidence technicians, jailers, and investigators on a yearly basis to agencies across the state.
Brian Steward, Missouri Department of Agriculture
Brian has been involved in investigations into multi state grain fraud and other grain fraud cases leading to convictions, He has worked alongside Harvey Beach and Eric Berwanger, former MOIA Board Members and currently works with Leah Baldon, a sitting Board Member. Brian has been involved in grain theft investigations over the years that has led to convictions. Over the years, Brian has been involved in cases of grain bankruptcy and grain warehouse seizures for the purposes of taking producer claims and distributing available funds to those producers.
Richard Adair, Missouri Department of Corrections
Richard has over thirty years in law enforcement with the Wildwood (New Jersey) Police Department and Ralls County (Missouri) Sheriff’s Department. Richard is currently employed by the Missouri Department of Corrections as an Investigations Supervisor in the Office of Professional Standards, Employee Conduct Unit.
During Richards professional career he was a certified instructor at the Cape May County (New Jersey) Police Academy in the areas of Communications, Report Writing, Traffic Law, DWI Enforcement and Accident Investigation. Richards currently a certified NITV Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA) Operator.
In addition during his law enforcement career, Richard promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and supervised the Traffic Safety Unit. Richard was also assigned to and was active with the Cape May County (NJ) Fatal Accident Unit as my career education included Vehicle Dynamics and being a certified Accident Reconstructionist.
During his entire career Richard has been an active member of the Fraternal Order of Police and currently for the past 8 years, the President of the Missouri FOP Lodge #103.
Troy Bastion, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services – Office of Special Investigations
Troy Bastion has been involved in the fields of law enforcement and funeral service for over 40 years. Troy began his career with the Wyandotte County, Kansas Sheriff’s Department, advancing to the US Dept. of Justice. He has served as a Mortuary Officer on the US DMORT mass fatality team, with multiple deployments, representing the US Dept. of Homeland Security, FEMA and The Office of the Secretary of State (Haiti earthquake response). Troy served 9 years as the investigator for the Crawford County, Kansas Prosecutor’s Office, before being appointed to his current position of Senior Criminal Investigator, Office of Special Investigation, MO. Dept. of Health and Senior Services.
Troy holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Pittsburg State University in Legal Emphasis Psychology, an Associates Degree from Kansas City, Kansas Community College, School of Mortuary Science, an Associates Degree from Kansas City, Kansas Community College in General Studies, with emphasis on criminal investigation.
He is a Certified Medicolegal Death Investigator, and certified by the International Conference of Funeral Service Examining Boards as an embalmer and funeral director. He also holds Diplomate Credentials in Traumatic Stress Intervention.
Mark Dennis, Dunklin County Prosecutor’s Office
Mark joined the MOIA in 2016, skipped a few years (not by choice), but has now been member consistently since 2020. He is currently the Investigator for the Dunklin County Missouri Prosecutor’s Office, a member of the Dunklin County Major Case Squad, and also a Lieutenant, Instructor, and Investigator for the Kennett Missouri Fire Department.
Prior to switching to the prosecutor’s office position, Mark was with the City of Kennett Police Department for 17 years where he held several titles from Communications to Detective/Sergeant in the Criminal Investigations Division.
Kacie Springer, Lebanon Police Department
Kacie started her career in law enforcement in 2006 as a dispatcher for Lake Ozark Police Department where she decided to become a police officer. In 2007, Kacie began working for the Lebanon Police Department. In 2009 she began specializing in internet crimes against children investigations as a member of Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and in 2015 became commander of the Lake Area Cyber Crimes Task Force overseeing ICAC operations in five counties in Missouri. Kacie promoted to Detective Sergeant over the Bureau of Investigations becoming the first female sergeant in the history of Lebanon Police Department in April 2016. In November 2024 Kacie was promoted to the position of Lieutenant also becoming the first female lieutenant in department history. She also holds the role of Public Information Officer with the department. She is the Co-Chairman of the Lake of the Ozarks Major Case Squad and spent 7 years as a task force officer with HSI from 2016-2022. She has experience investigating homicides and death investigations, bank robberies, crimes against children, cold case missing persons, and property crimes to name a few.
Kacie has thousands of hours in investigative and leadership training and is CVSA certified. Within her department, she has conducted not only criminal investigations, but background and internal investigations for her department. She holds a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice, Psychology, and Sociology and a Master’s in Public Service and Safety Leadership; both from Drury University. She is a generalist and specialist instructor certified and is employed at Drury Law Enforcement Academy as an adjunct instructor.
Kacie serves as the Director over the Shop with a Cop Program in Laclede County and is a board member for Lebanon’s local food pantry. She enjoys helping her community where needed and has built a great working relationship with local and regional media in her area.