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The St. Charles County Department of Public Health is hosting several CPR/AED and First Aid classes in 2023. Upon completion of the class, participants will earn an American Red Cross training certificate valid for two years from the date of completion.

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With the enactment of new voting laws, current Missouri residents now have more flexibility to update their address and register to vote.

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The St. Charles County Recorder of Deeds office is one of two offices in the state beta testing a new system that enables the processing of electronic marriage license applications without the need for either applicant to appear at the office in person.

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Save time (and a stamp!) by filing your 2023 personal property assessment online. Assessment forms must be completed and returned to the Assessor by March 1.

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Throughout the month of February, follow along on County social media as we highlight and show appreciation for different County departments and services.

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If you’ve driven on I-70 in the St. Charles area in the last several months, I’m sure you’ve noticed the ongoing construction at and leading up to the Zumbehl and Cave Springs roads exits. While the frustrations of driving through construction traffic are likely your first thought when passing through these areas, I hope to encourage you about the improvements this construction will bring once the projects are complete!
The bridges at Cave Springs and Zumbehl are just pieces of the bigger picture: Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT)’s I-70 Cave Springs to Fairgrounds Design-Build Project [https://i70csfg.com/] aims to enhance connectivity, improve safety, and provide much needed updates to this corridor. These interchanges have a higher than average crash rate, at two crashes per day on average between 2013 and 2017. Traffic jams flowing from outer roads and the interstate cause congestion, especially during rush hours. The existing infrastructure has been quickly outgrown by the number of businesses and residential areas located in this corridor, and the stretch of Cave Springs to Fairgrounds roads needs to meet the success of that.
MoDOT is expected to complete the first half of both these bridges in the spring, with traffic switching over to the new bridges this summer. The old bridges will then be demolished, making room for the second half of each to be built. You can track ongoing progress on the project website [https://i70csfg.com/] , and follow MoDOT on social media [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064415246709] for construction updates impacting travel.
A lot of our residents and businesses have wondered what the traffic flow at these bridges will look like. These are designed to be Single Point Urban Interchanges (SPUI), similar to what you see at I-70 and First Capitol/Route 94. MoDOT is targeting the new interchanges to be in place by the beginning of 2024, with full completion of the project by June 2024.
Please take extra care while driving through these construction zones and be alert for lane closures and changes to traffic flow. I hope you enjoy viewing the progress as we get closer to project completion!

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In the coming months, the St. Charles County Police Department Criminalistics Laboratory will add another resource to its toolkit in solving crimes in the area, specifically enhancing the reliability and validity of complex DNA samples.
A new DNA analysis software, called ArmedXpert™, will allow the Crime Lab to more efficiently and effectively identify DNA profiles that involve multiple contributors. While the Lab’s accredited DNA analysis staff can do this now, the software assesses the DNA components much faster and even more accurately than by human review. I talked with Crime Lab Director Bryan Hampton to understand what this means for our police department and for St. Charles County as a whole.
He told me the software conducts a deconvolution process; it takes information from complex DNA mixtures and parses it out to organize the sample into identifiable profiles at a much higher speed than we can currently. It allows us to extract more information from the data, and garner more usable profiles from complex samples that have multiple contributors, or subjects.
Bryan says this technology will play an important role in cases such as burglaries, stolen vehicles and even homicides.
When there is a mixture of DNA in a sample, Bryan said it is a tedious process to analyze and accurately glean a usable profile to identify which DNA belongs to which individual. The Crime Lab has the capability to do that already, but the complexity and length of time of the process is greatly reduced with this software—from hours down to minutes.
Why does this matter for a St. Charles County resident? This means our Crime Lab can process more forensic evidence, more efficiently. With a workload of more than 2,500 cases each year, there is no shortage of evidence to examine and analyze. Any link from evidence to existing data, or addition of new data, helps cut down the time it takes to charge and prosecute suspects, and fairly and expeditiously aid the judicial process.
Regionally, DNA profiles, fingerprints and ballistic evidence uploaded by the department to investigative databases have provided links between cases. In 2022 alone, 162 DNA profiles uploaded by the Lab to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database “hit” to prior offenders, arrestees, and crime scene samples from across the country. This valuable information has an impact on current cases, but also has helped solve cold cases, such as the 1993 kidnapping and murder of Angie Housman [https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/photos-convicted-child-predator-charged-with-1993-murder-of-angie-housman/collection_a2ffdf69-e439-57f5-bfeb-0f5604c3f8cb.html#1] , the 1984 murder of Eleonora Knoernschild [https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/one-of-two-brothers-found-guilty-in-1984-st-charles-murder/63-594818048] , and the 1990-1991 “package killer” murders of five women [https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2022-09-23/how-gary-muehlberg-was-revealed-as-st-louis-package-killer] .
Bryan says this new software will potentially allow the Lab to upload more DNA profiles into CODIS that otherwise may not be eligible. With that, there could be more database hits and the department could make more contributions to solving crime regionally as well as nationally.
While we take pride in keeping our county safe, it’s no secret that crime has impacted our region, and criminals hold no regard for jurisdictional boundaries when committing a criminal act or attempting to flee. We should all be proud of the work of our Crime Lab and how valuable it is in assisting in fighting crime. It is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) National Accreditation Board (ANAB) and has been continuously since 2007. The Lab is staffed by six full-time scientists, a part-time firearm examiner and a part-time evidence clerk with nearly 120 years of combined forensic science experience.

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During flu season, the Department of Public Health tracks cases of influenza in St. Charles County.

Total cases reported to-date for 2022-2023 season – 7,321
Total cases reported for period ending 1/27/23 – 53

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When the weather outside gets frightful, we know to bring ourselves inside for shelter and warmth. However, it is also up to owners to protect their pets from cold temperatures and dangerous winter storms.

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