Harrison Keegan

Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader

FAIR GROVE, Mo. — Authorities spent six weeks investigating a case of cow rape and decided last week to charge a 68-year-old man with unlawful sex with an animal.

The woman who owned the cow walked into her barn the evening of June 10 after seeing a car that she could not identify parked near it. When she stepped inside, she told police that she found a naked man, later identified as Darrell Helton of Nixa, Mo., standing behind one of her cows trying to have sex with it.

Helton allegedly told Greene County sheriff's deputies that he went to the property in Fair Grove, about 15 miles northwest of Springfield in the southwest corner of the state; caught a cow; tied it to the corral; and tried to have sex with it. He said it was the second time he had engaged in sex acts with a cow on that property.

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Unlawful sex with an animal is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year behind bars.

Helton does not appear to have been jailed and has no lawyer listed for this case. The News-Leader was unable to reach Helton for comment using phone numbers listed for him in online records.

Follow Harrison Keegan on Twitter: @HKeeganNL

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