Two W.S. residents charged for defacing W.P. mural

Two adults have been charged with felonies after admitting to spray-painting a mural in downtown West Plains. DeLenn Bourassa, 27, and Johnathan T. Goodman, 30, have each been charged with first-degree property damage. Court documents say both defendants admitted to the graffiti during non-custodial interviews. 

 

The damage occurred on the night of October 28, and the West Plains Police Department released surveillance footage with photos of the damage, enlisting the public’s help to identify the perpetrators. By early last week, Bourassa and Goodman had been both identified and charged. 

 

The victim, Crockett W. Oakes, III, told police the graffiti caused $10,000 in damage to his property. Oakes owns the building on Court Square. He commissioned the mural, The Protector, a part of a plan to bring more public art to West Plains. 

 

Oakes told Howell County News the cost of the damages reflects the cost of bringing the original artist, Dr. Bolaji Ogunwo, back to West Plains to repair the mural. 

 

Dr. Ogunwo lives in Lagos, Nigeria, and has been to West Plains several times to create artwork around the city as part of Oakes’ community initiatives. 

 

“Public art was something West Plains needed more of,” Oakes said in a documentary about his recent projects in the city. “The best way to get what you want is to go after it yourself.”

 

“Airline tickets, food and lodging would be expected expenses that we would pay. Dr. Ogunwo is gracious donating his time and artistry to repair the protector,” Oakes told the News.

 

The Protector depicts a mother standing protectively over her two sons. She is looking up, “to the heavens,” as Oakes described it. The oldest child is looking to his mother, and the youngest is looking at the viewer, or to the future, as Oakes points out. 

 

In the documentary, Oakes says there have been, “a number of reactions,” to the mural from the community. 

 

In online commentary, one of the accused denies the mural’s subject made it a target. 

 

Commenting on a news story published on social media by the West Plains Daily Quill, Goodman said it, “definitely was not a hate crime. It was a childish act by adults who at midnight in an unlit area could not see it had something in it.”

 

Bourassa was arrested and posted her $10,000 bond on November 5. According to online court records, Goodman has not yet been arrested in connection with this matter. His bond will also be $10,000.