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Ozark man in jail for negligent homicide now facing multiple child pornography charges

Writer's picture: Dennis McCaslinDennis McCaslin



An Ozark man who has been in jail since December 23 of 2020 saw his legal problems escalate last week when he was hit with multiple charges of Distributing, Possessing or Viewing Sexually Explicit Matter Involving Children.


Douglas Shane Darr, 43, was already in the Franklin County Jail facing Negligent Homicide, Leaving the Scene of an Accident Causing Personal Injury or Death and Failing to Render Aid charges when investigators added the child pornography counts to his docket sheet.


Darr, who police say admitted to leaving the scene of a later December accident that took the life of 59-year-old tanker driver James Rotenbury on I40 near Ozark, is facing numerous counts involving hundreds of images.


The additional charges stemmed from an investigation into that crash. Investigators secured a search warrant on Darr's cell phone during the initial interview following the accident and observed images of child pornography. After obtaining a second search warrant for the illicit imagery, police discovered more than 200 images on the phone depicting children between the ages of five and sixteen, some of which who were having sex with adults.


That lead to a serach warrant for Darr's Ozark resident and two laptops, nine mini hard-drives, two external hard rives, one bag of children's underwear and a male sex toy were taken into evidence.


Police said Darr admitted to possessing the child pornography and that more would be found on the seized computers and hard drives. He has been officially charged with fifty counts with of the Class C felonies.


A pre-trial hearing in the matter has been set for May 20.



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