A Polk County man sent a co-worker Facebook messages asking how hot the fuel tanks outside his store would have to get before they exploded, then added that it was all a joke. On October 9 the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, affirmed his felony conviction, and the opinion shows how little the word “joke” does once a message has been sent.
New decision. State v. Zook, No. SD39212, was filed October 9, 2026. Court of Appeals opinions remain subject to rehearing and to transfer to the Supreme Court of Missouri, so confirm the current status on Missouri Courts before treating this as settled.
On February 8, 2025, according to the opinion, Dustin Charles Zook messaged a co-worker and friend through Facebook Messenger. The two had worked together for roughly six or seven months at Fast ’N Friendly convenience stores in Bolivar. Zook believed he was about to be fired because he had not been placed on the work schedule. In that conversation he asked how hot the above-ground storage tanks outside Store 14 would need to get in order to explode. When the friend asked what he was planning, Zook answered that he would level the store and maybe the general manager’s house, then wrote that it was all a joke and entirely hypothetical. He added that if he were going to do something like that, it would take about two bricks of C4, which would be, in his words, easy to make.
He was arrested by the Bolivar Police Department later the same day. In a post-Miranda interview he acknowledged sending the messages, maintained that they were a joke, conceded that other people had not read them that way, and said that he had taken it too far. He was charged by felony information with making a terrorist threat in the second degree under section 574.120 RSMo, convicted after a bench trial, and sentenced to four years. The circuit court suspended execution of that sentence and placed him on five years of supervised probation. He appealed on one ground only: that the evidence was insufficient.
What the statute actually requires
Section 574.120 was enacted as part of the 2014 criminal code rewrite in Senate Bill 491 and took effect January 1, 2017. It has two working parts, and they carry different mental states.
Element one, recklessness. The person must recklessly disregard the risk of causing the evacuation, quarantine or closure of any portion of a building, inhabitable structure, place of assembly or facility of transportation.
Element two, knowledge. The person must knowingly communicate an express or implied threat to cause an incident or condition involving danger to life, communicate a false report of such an incident or condition, or cause a false belief or fear that such an incident has occurred or such a condition exists.
Penalty and exception. The offense is a class E felony, which carries a term of up to four years under section 558.011 RSMo. The statute also provides that no offense is committed by a person acting in good faith with the purpose to prevent harm.
Two features of that text deserve attention. The statute does not require that anyone actually evacuate, close or quarantine anything, only a reckless disregard of the risk, and it reaches an implied threat rather than only an explicit one. By contrast, the first-degree offense in section 574.115 RSMo requires a purpose to frighten ten or more people or to force a closure, and is a class D felony.
Why the argument about intent did not land
Zook’s appeal was narrow and, in its own terms, careful. He argued that the State had failed to prove he acted knowingly, because the full context of the exchange would not let a reasonable fact-finder conclude he knew his statements were practically certain to communicate an intent to endanger human life. The problem was structural. Under section 562.016.3 RSMo, there are two ways to establish knowledge, and they are alternatives rather than a single test.
As to conduct or attendant circumstances: a person acts knowingly when he is aware of the nature of his conduct, or aware that those circumstances exist.
As to a result: a person acts knowingly when he is aware that his conduct is practically certain to cause that result.
The court held that Zook had attacked the second alternative while the State had proved the first. The relevant question, the panel explained by reference to the Supreme Court of Missouri’s decision in D.C.M. v. Pemiscot County Juvenile Office, was whether the evidence showed he was aware he was communicating an express or implied threat to cause an incident endangering life. On that question the record contained his own words asking how hot the tanks would have to get, his statement that he would level the store and possibly the manager’s house, his claim about the C4, and his admission to a Bolivar officer that he took it too far.
The standard of review did the rest of the work. In a court-tried criminal case the trial court’s findings carry the force of a jury verdict under Rule 27.01(b), and on appeal the court accepts as true all evidence tending to prove guilt and every reasonable inference supporting the verdict, disregarding contrary evidence. The panel noted that Zook’s framing was inconsistent with that standard, because it asked the court to weigh the surrounding context rather than view the record most favorably to the judgment.
A sufficiency appeal is not a second trial. It asks only whether a reasonable fact-finder could have reached the verdict on the evidence most favorable to it, which means the context a defendant finds exculpatory is the context the appellate court must set aside.
Capability mattered. A date and time did not
Zook relied on C.G.M., II v. Juvenile Officer, a 2008 decision holding that a juvenile’s remarks were not definite or declaratory statements of a threat. There, the juvenile had asked whether a classmate wanted to help him blow up the school if he received dynamite for his birthday. The Southern District distinguished it on a single point: the juvenile in C.G.M. lacked both the means and the certainty to carry out what he described, while Zook claimed knowledge of how to build the device and the ability to act on it.
He also argued that his messages identified no particular date or time, pointing to language in D.C.M. The court accepted that a date or time is sufficient to show a knowing communication, but held it is not necessary, citing its 2024 decision in State v. Keathley, where a statement that the defendant would take care of the kids himself could be read as a definitive threat with no temporal detail. Judge Jeffrey W. Bates wrote the opinion; Chief Judge Becky J. West and Judge Joseph L. Hensley concurred, with no dissent.
The constitutional question the court did not reach
The opinion records something that matters as much as the holding. Zook did not move to dismiss the information for failure to allege a true threat, and he raised no First Amendment challenge. Because neither argument was presented, the Southern District had no occasion to address it, and the decision should not be read as resolving one.
That gap is worth naming, because the United States Supreme Court addressed the adjacent question three years ago. In Counterman v. Colorado, decided June 27, 2023, the Court held that the First Amendment requires the State to prove a defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements, and that recklessness satisfies that requirement. Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan explained that the State must show the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence, and need not prove a more demanding intent to threaten. She was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Alito, Kavanaugh and Jackson.
The Court was not unanimous. Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, arguing that an objective standard should govern true threats. Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred in part and in the judgment, joined in part by Justice Neil Gorsuch, and would have confined the recklessness holding to the stalking context. Reasonable judges disagree about where the line sits, and the firm takes no position. The practical point is procedural rather than political: a defense never raised in the trial court is usually unavailable later.
What this means for Missourians
Most people who send a message like this one are not planning anything, and that is the uncomfortable part of the holding. The statute is built around what a message communicates and the risk it creates, not around whether the sender meant to follow through, and a private exchange between two friends is still a communication for these purposes.
A message cannot be unsent. Deleting a thread does not remove it from the recipient’s device, the platform’s records, or a screenshot already taken.
Adding that it is a joke does not undo it. Zook called the exchange entirely hypothetical in the same conversation, and that language appears in the opinion without changing the result.
Claiming capability is not a harmless flourish. The detail separating this case from C.G.M. was the assertion of knowing how to build the device and being able to use it.
Statements to officers carry weight. The admission that he took it too far was cited as evidence of awareness, and it came in a post-Miranda interview.
A suspended sentence is still a conviction. Probation kept Zook out of prison, but it did not erase a class E felony that will follow him through background checks, firearm eligibility and licensing.
There is an employment dimension as well. The exchange began with Zook’s belief that he was being pushed out, which is a common moment for people to put things in writing that they would never say out loud. Missouri workers who believe they are being treated unlawfully have avenues that run through the employment law process, including the Missouri Commission on Human Rights for discrimination claims under Chapter 213 RSMo. None of those avenues survive a felony conviction arising out of the same dispute.
For anyone already facing a charge of this kind, the sequence in this opinion is instructive. The issues decided on appeal are the issues preserved at trial, which is why the early stage of a criminal case usually matters more than the appeal itself. Cases built on messages and platform records also sit at the intersection of criminal defense and technology law, raising questions about how a communication was preserved and whether the copy in evidence is complete. For those with older records rather than pending charges, Missouri’s expungement framework changes in January and is worth a separate conversation.
Helpful resources
The coverage below is drawn from several vantage points and labeled by ownership, so you can weigh each account and reach your own conclusion.
Missouri Courts, appellate opinions · Office of State Courts Administrator, State of Missouri. The slip opinion in State v. Zook, No. SD39212, filed October 9, 2026, is published under the Southern District hand-down list for that date.
Section 574.120 RSMo, making a terrorist threat in the second degree · Missouri Revisor of Statutes, official state publisher of the codified statutes.
Section 574.115 RSMo, first-degree offense for comparison · Missouri Revisor of Statutes.
Section 562.016 RSMo, culpable mental states · Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Subsection 3 sets out the two alternative definitions of acting knowingly that decided this appeal.
Section 558.011 RSMo, authorized terms of imprisonment · Missouri Revisor of Statutes.
Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), slip opinion · Supreme Court of the United States, primary source. Majority by Justice Kagan; dissent by Justice Barrett, joined by Justice Thomas.
The Missouri Bar, weekly case summaries · published by The Missouri Bar, the state’s unified bar association, which is a professional membership body rather than a news outlet.
Missouri Commission on Human Rights · Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, state agency, for employment discrimination claims under Chapter 213 RSMo.
Related on this site: 500 Feet From the Person, Not the House · Missouri Automatic Expungement Begins in January · One Word in a Jury Instruction
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This article is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not legal or tax advice, it does not address any particular person’s circumstances, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Haake Law Group PC or Derek R. Haake. Statutes, court rules and appellate decisions change, appellate opinions may be modified or transferred before they become final, and criminal charges carry serious penalties including imprisonment and lifelong collateral consequences. Verify anything described here against the current official source and consult a licensed attorney about your own situation before acting.