By Robert Patrick
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY, Mo. — A judge on Tuesday set bail at $1 million cash for Malissa Ancona, accused of the Feb. 9 fatal shooting of her husband, a Ku Klux Klan leader.
Ancona, 44, of Leadwood, and her son, Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr., 24, of Belgrade, Missouri, face charges of murder, armed criminal action, abandonment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence in the death of Frank Ancona, 51. Malissa Ancona and Jinkerson have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Malissa Ancona was not present in court, but Assistant Public Defender Stephanie Zipfel cited Ancona’s lack of prior felonies, her lifelong residency in Missouri and her mental health problems in requesting a $500,000 bond. Ancona is indigent, she said, and her only income was disability payments for those mental health problems.
Jinkerson is being held without bond. Prosecutors are also seeking to revoke his bond in two other, unrelated criminal cases.
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ben Campbell asked Circuit Judge Joseph L. Goff Jr. for the million-dollar bond for Ancona, citing the accusations in charging documents filed earlier this month.
Those documents say Malissa Ancona blamed her son, and that Jinkerson used a 9mm handgun to shoot Frank Ancona in the head while he was asleep in his bed on Feb. 9.
But Washington County Coroner Brian DeClue told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch earlier in February that Frank Ancona was shot in the head by both a pistol and a shotgun. The shots came at close range, he said.
Authorities recovered both weapons after Malissa Ancona told them where they were, Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen has said. The pistol had been dumped in the Big River in Washington County and the shotgun in a St. Francois County pond.
Frank Ancona was imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Authorities previously have said that his threats of divorce might have been the motive for the crime.
Jinkerson’s father, Paul Jinkerson Sr., has said that Frank Acona had called him about six months ago, saying that he was trying to leave his wife. “He was done with her,” but he was also afraid because she had threatened to hurt herself or call the police in the past, Jinkerson Sr. said.
In recently unsealed court documents, investigators said that Frank Ancona’s “bodyguard” had spoken of past death threats Malissa Ancona had made against her husband.
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