By Andy Banker
LINCOLN COUNTY, Missouri (KTVI) — A Lincoln County woman was in jail Monday night, accused of threatening children with a chainsaw.
Lynn Marie Herzog, 50, of Winfield, is charged with felony harassment of a child under 17.
Court documents accuse her of screaming and cursing at her neighbors while wearing a ski mask and shaking a chainsaw at them from her yard on McClay Road outside of Winfield Sunday morning.
If Herzog wanted to scare the pants off the neighbors, it worked.
Neighbors said they were frightened than ever of her.
Neighbor Patty Fleming said Herzog had been sawing a tree that came down during a recent storm; Herzog was wearing an open-faced ski mask.
“I come out of my door and hear her screaming at the kids. The boys start walking and she starts walking towards them with her skull mask and her chainsaw, shaking it like she was going to hurt the kids,” Fleming said.
Neighbor Lesa Vossenkemper said she’d filed for a protection order after years of threats against her 28-year-old mentally disabled son.
“Our son is so terrified of her, that he’s afraid she’s going to wind up in the house with him and do something to him…I’m tired of living in fear. She scares me. I don’t let a whole lot scare me but she does,” Vossenkemper said.
Neighbors said the chainsaw was not running at the time of the threat; Herzog had accused neighbor boys of throwing rocks at her or her home in the past.
“I’m like, you’re an adult, if the kids are throwing rocks – number 1, they weren’t; you know, rocks versus a chainsaw, come on,” Fleming said.
None of that matters in terms of this current charge.
Herzog faces up to four years in prison if convicted.
Neighbors believe a mental treatment facility would be better than prison.
Herzog lives with her elderly father at the home. Neither responded to KTVI’s messages, Monday.
