MEAGAN LEIGH PHOTOGRAPHY
Charges against the brothers accused of shooting Rain Stippec have been refiled.
St. Louis prosecutors have re-filed charges against two brothers accused of
shooting a professional dancer and a city fire captain last year in Soulard.
The trial of Ryan Hartman, 34, and James Hartman, 25, had been scheduled for Monday, but court records show it was canceled last week. Instead, the charges of assault and armed criminal action were filed again on Monday.
It wasn't immediately clear what was behind the re-start. The online court records for the original case, which were previously publicly available, were closed on Monday. A spokeswoman for the St. Louis Circuit Attorney did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Police claim the Hartmans opened fire on Rain Stippec and the firefighter at about 12:40 a.m. as the two sat in the captain's car in the 2500 block of South Seventh Street. The firefighter was hit in the hand, back, shoulder and knee, but Stippec got the worst of it. She took eight rounds to the abdomen.
The attack nearly killed her, and she has had more than a dozen surgeries since then. Supporters of Stippec, who studied dance at Webster University, organized multiple
fundraisers, including an
arts festival in her honor.
A motive for the shooting has never been publicly revealed. Each brother was charged with two counts of first-degree assault and armed criminal action. James Hartman was also charged with multiple drug possession charges. While serving a search warrant at his home on Arsenal Street in Clifton Heights, police say, investigators discovered steroids, marijuana and un-prescribed stimulants.
The brothers had been released to house arrest in the south county town of Lakeshire during the original case. Court records indicate they'll have a similar arrangement this time around.
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