After two and a half months in the St. Louis County jail, former police officer Matt McCulloch was yesterday granted a less restrictive bond, allowing him to enter in-patient treatment at a hospital in St. Charles.
McCulloch, 39, the son of longtime St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch, is currently facing 11 felony charges after opening fire at a Kirkwood middle school’s trunk or treat event on a Sunday evening last October. Bystanders tackled him to the ground and he was taken into custody. Prosecutors charged him with multiple counts of endangering the welfare of a child and armed criminal action, as well as one count each of making a terroristic threat and unlawful use of a weapon. He had been an officer with the St. Louis County Police Department since 2017 but was let go from the department a few days after the incident.
McCulloch was still in the county jail as of last evening, but after a bond hearing yesterday afternoon, Judge Ellen Ribaudo allowed him a path out of the county justice center.
Ribaudo signed an order yesterday lowering McCulloch’s bond from $500,000 to $250,000, of which McCulloch is only required to post 10 percent.
If and when McCulloch does post that bond, he must go directly to the psychiatric hospital in St. Charles where he will undertake in-patient treatment in a locked unit with 24-hour supervision, as per the judge’s order.
That order goes on to say that, “The facility shall notify the court immediately via cell phone if defendant attempts to leave the facility, does not comply with program requirements or otherwise violates this order.”
After completion of in-patient treatment, the order says, a family member may transport McCulloch to a residence in Defiance, Missouri, where he will be on home detention and GPS monitoring. He is forbidden from going within 1,000 feet of any Kirkwood public school and must avoid all contact with his alleged victims from the shooting incident, his children and his ex-wife.
According to the Post-Dispatch, the less restrictive bond for McCulloch was put in place over the objections of prosecutor Jessica Hathaway, who said that treatment at the facility is generally only seven to ten days long.
The next hearing in McCulloch’s case is on January 19.
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