Destructive flooding is sometimes seen as an "act of God," but one Illinois man is serving time in prison for causing the Mississippi River to inundate a town in Missouri. We hear his story in this week's Criminal Podcast. Phoebe Judge hosts the show.
Jimmy Scott grew up in Quincy, Ill. When he and his brothers were pre-teens, they burned down an elementary school. That started Scott's reputation as a trouble maker, though he says he never committed any violent crimes.
"Small arsons here and there," Scott said. "I think dumpster fires, maybe a car fire. You know, petty theft, just petty. If something happened in my neighborhood, the cops were the first to call our house. They was the first ones to show up and say,'Where was you at, what was you doing'?"
In 1993, there were heavy storms across the Midwest. Scott said he worked helping shoring up the town's levees along the Mississippi River. River levels were dangerously high. Scott said he noticed a weak spot and moved a few sandbags to support it.
"You heard the levy break," he recalled. "Being on the Bayview Bridge, I seen trees cracking and it was loud. We heard the rushing water from half-a-mile away, a quarter-mile away."
Authorities thought it was suspicious that Scott was at the levee when it failed. Investigators talked to some of his friends, who told them Scott had said he wished the town below the levee, West Quincy, Mo., would flood. Scott's wife worked in West Quincy, and he said he wouldn't mind if she were stuck there for a while, so he could party in peace. Besides, he said, a flood would be good for catching catfish. Scott was tried and convicted of a Missouri law, which makes it a crime to "Intentionally Cause a Catastrophe".
"The judge said at my sentencing...'It's funny that it started with fire and ended with water," Scott mused.
He still denies causing the flood. Even after the first trial was thrown out, he was convicted a second time.
He's still serving time. He's up for parole in 2023.
"There are probably things that I've done in my life, leading up to the flood, that I never got caught for that I should be in prison for, but the West Quincy levee, no," he said.
You can hear more about Jimmy Scott and the Catastrophe on the Mississippi on this week's Criminal podcast.
Criminal is recorded in the studios of WUNC.
