A 65-year-old Pierce City man recently taken into custody on felony forgery charges has now been indicted by a grand jury in a decades-old murder case.

Lt. Chris Berry with the Lawrence County Sheriff's office confirmed that Lawrence Gene Timmons has been indicted in connection with the death of Cynthia A. Smith, a California native whose body was found Aug. 7, 1988 in the Dry Valley Cemetery area, five miles northwest of Pierce City.

Berry said Timmons was indicted on more than one charge, including one for possession of a firearm while a felon.

Back in 1988, the 31-year-old Smith had lived in Aurora for some years. Shortly before her death, she resigned from a job at a long-term care facility in that area.

She was last seen in the early morning hours of July 28, 1988 leaving a bar, Checker's, in the company of an unknown male, according to news accounts at the time. Later that morning, a baby sitter filed a missing person's report when Smith did not pick up her sons, Jason Smith, then 4, and Shawn Goodspeed, then 8. Smith was estranged from her husband, Ed Smith.

"I think it used to be called Checker's," said Peddie Ormsby, 65, a former work colleague of Smith's. "It was a bar, it used to be a bowling alley and a bar. Cindi left with somebody they did not know. She just didn’t come back the next day to check on her boys. She would never leave her boys overnight without checking on them."

Timmons was questioned in the matter of Smith's death that summer, but no charges were filed. At the time, the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office opened an inquiry into the case and deployed a major crimes unit including 16 investigators.

"I think people were horrified that this could happen to a young mother in this area," said Kim McCully Mobley, then editor of the Aurora Advertiser and now a teacher in the Aurora school system, in an interview with the News-Leader on Aug. 28.

"Most people knew each other and felt safe," she added. "We had a few murders in this area in the late 1980s, and each incident was always met with shock, disbelief and the need to gather your friends and family closer. We always had a habit of trying to watch out for each other."

By 1988, Timmons — a former sailor — had already earned a rap sheet. He was convicted in 1976 of felony kidnapping and assault in Springfield. Prosecutors said that in May of that year, a 22-year-old Timmons brandished a shotgun at an 11-year-old boy searching for lawn-mowing work on East Normal Street. They said Timmons forced the boy into the basement of the house where Timmons, recently discharged from the U.S. Navy, was living with several other young men.

Prosecutors said Timmons tied up the boy, then dunked his head into a cooler partly filled with water. The boy passed out, but later regained consciousness and found Timmons to be out of the room. The boy freed himself and escaped through a basement window.

Timmons was incarcerated Dec. 15, 1978 and paroled June 5, 1981, Garry Brix with the Missouri Department of Corrections told the News-Leader on Aug. 16. In May of 1983, Timmons was discharged from parole.

News accounts from 1988 show that the 34-year-old Timmons — by then the father of a 2-year-old daughter — was one of many people questioned about Smith's death in Lawrence County.

He was not charged, but four days after Smith's body was found, he was arrested separately on suspicion of rape, armed criminal action and marijuana possession. After news of Smith's death broke, a 24-year-old Monett woman told law enforcement officials that Timmons raped her at gunpoint on the way to the now-defunct bar where Smith was allegedly seen shortly before she died, according to past News-Leader and Advertiser reporting.

He was acquitted on the rape charge in March 1989, according to a News-Leader account.

Timmons became the subject of a new investigation by Lawrence County authorities in March of this year, leading to his arrest on Aug. 19. He was charged with felony forgery. Prosecutors alleged he falsified employment applications and used as many as 17 variations of his name, along with four Social Security numbers and six dates of birth.

Bond on the forgery charge was set at $250,000, a considerable sum for that type of charge.

At a bond-reduction hearing held in Mt. Vernon on Aug. 28, Lawrence County prosecutors told Judge Scott S. Sifferman that victims of Timmons were "afraid of him."

It was unclear who the victims were, though in 2016 Timmons was convicted in Monett municipal court of two counts of harassment, fined $450 and given 12 months probation with a suspended 90-day jail sentence.

A probable cause statement filed in connection with the forgery arrest states that in 2016 Timmons emailed two women at the Monett YWCA about anal sex.

(In 2009, public records show, Monroe County, New York Sheriff’s deputies interviewed Timmons after receiving complaints that he left notes on the windshields of the cars of two women, soliciting them to meet him. There was not enough evidence that a crime occurred for deputies to make an arrest.)

At the bond-reduction hearing, prosecutors also cited the 1976 Springfield kidnapping, characterizing it as an attempt by Timmons to drown the child. They said Timmons, who lived in the Rochester, New York area in the 2000s, planned to move to "New England" in the coming weeks and presented a flight risk.

Timmons appeared from jail via video teleconference.

"I've never tried to flee from anything at all," he told Judge Sifferman. "I don't feel like I'm a flight risk at all."

The judge ordered that the bond remain set at $250,000 and scheduled a Sept. 12 hearing to argue whether Timmons should be allowed a public defender. Timmons' application was denied prior to the bond hearing because he had too many assets to qualify, prosecutors said. In court, Timmons argued that his assets were "tied up" in his Pierce City home.

Timmons' wife of 24 years, Mechele Timmons, filed for divorce on the day of the bond-reduction hearing.

This report is a USA TODAY Network collaboration between the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle and the Springfield News-Leader.