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SALEM, Mo. — The body was found inside an unlocked shed.

It had been wrapped in multiple trash bags and thrown into one garbage can, then another. Decomposition was well on its way.

Police suspected it was the body of U.S. Army veteran Thomas Clubb, court records say.

He hadn't been seen alive since 2019.

Now, federal prosecutors in Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ say Clubb's nephew, Brian K. Ditch, forced Clubb — a quadriplegic — to live in a locked garage apartment for years at a home here.

The federal indictment, unsealed on Thursday, describes how Ditch, who was loved and trusted by his extended family, volunteered to look after his uncle. Court records and interviews also revealed how Ditch eventually moved Clubb into the garage and locked him away with nothing to eat or drink, sitting in his own feces and urine, sometimes for 24 hours at a time.

And when Clubb died, the indictment says, Ditch hid his body in the trash cans, and kept drawing his disability and social security payments — at least $650,000 in all, charges say.

The discovery of the body and news of Ditch's arrest shocked this 5,000-person town about a two-hour drive southwest of Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ near the Mark Twain National Forest, a gateway to some of the state's great spring-fed rivers. Locals said they couldn't believe that their neighbor, who lived in the community for years, could've harbored such a secret.

"He seemed so sweet," said Kayla Richardson, who served Ditch when she worked at a pharmacy and a local restaurant. "He was quiet."

Ditch was charged in March in state court with abandoning a corpse and other felonies. He is being held in jail on a $500,000 bond. His attorney in that case did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Clubb grew up in Fredericktown, south of Farmington.

He always had a job, his brother said: He worked at a restaurant. He mowed grass. When he wasn't on the clock, he loved to hunt and fish.

As a teen, Clubb enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was following in the footsteps of his father — a veteran who spent three years in Korea as a prisoner of war. Clubb planned to make a career out of it, his brother said.

But at 19, Clubb was enjoying a day off during a deployment in Germany when he got into a car accident. He flew through the windshield and spent months in a coma. He was paralyzed from the neck down.

He moved back home, and his family cared for him, said his niece, Angie Clubb Crowder. They built a door off the side of his room so he could wheel out onto the deck and enjoy the summer sunshine. He loved reading the newspaper.

"He loved his family," Crowder said in an interview. "He loved when people would come visit him and talk to him."

Ditch agreed to take him

Clubb lived with his mother for decades, family said. After that, he briefly moved in with his brother and his brother's wife, then with his sister, Ditch's mother. 

But caring for him was difficult, and she couldn't handle it, Crowder said. She looked into taking him to a home with the VA.

Instead, Ditch agreed to take him.

Crowder, Clubb's niece, was close to Ditch from the time they were children. They were born just six weeks apart. She said he was always quiet and reserved, but she loved him. She thought he'd take care of her uncle.

Clubb moved in with Ditch and his family in Perryville, son RJ Ditch said in an interview Thursday.

It was not a happy childhood, said RJ, 22. His father — 6 feet, 9 inches tall and covered in tattoos — was physically and emotionally abusive to his family, including Clubb, court records say. He pleaded guilty to burglary in 1999 and domestic assault in 2008.

Around 2015, the family moved to Salem. And in 2017, they landed here, in a white ranch-style house with a detached garage in the 1200 block of North Main Street.

At first, RJ Ditch said, Clubb lived in a back bedroom. But at some point, his dad had the garage converted into an apartment with air conditioning and a bathroom.

RJ Ditch said he only saw the apartment once. His dad tightly controlled who could see his uncle, he said, and for years, he didn't think much of it.

Crowder said she visited her uncle sometime in 2017 or 2018, and he seemed to be taken care of. He was a healthy weight. She sat and talked to him.

"Where it went down after that," she said, "I couldn't tell you."

But his family had lost touch. Crowder and Ditch had drifted apart.

Meanwhile, Clubb hadn't been seen. And as far as anyone knew, Ditch was paying his bills. He was into exotic reptiles and bought some even though he wasn't working, charges say.

In 2022, an unidentified family member walked into the Salem Police Department: The person believed Clubb had died and Ditch was stealing his veteran benefit checks, charges say.

The department, however, kept no detailed records of that meeting, court records say. The complaint was determined to be unfounded.

Meanwhile, RJ Ditch had moved out of the house. His dad had told a relative that he'd sent Clubb to a veterans home, and RJ Ditch had no reason to disagree. Besides, he said, he was afraid to ask.

"Every time he would talk, it would just go bad," he said. "It would end up being an argument."

Last year, Crowder saw Ditch's adult children at a graduation party. She asked about her uncle.

"They couldn't tell me," she said.

The family started calling around to veterans homes and other places, trying to figure out where Clubb might be. Most of the time, the facilities couldn't tell them much, Crowder said. They weren't authorized caregivers.

Crowder's brother decided to call for a welfare check, she said.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services' elder abuse line received a call on March 5, 2025, court records say. It was a relative saying they hadn't heard from Clubb in years.

Salem police began to investigate. They learned U.S. Veteran's Affairs was sending Clubb $9,559 each month; social security, another $1,612.

On March 7, they interviewed Ditch, court records say.

Snakes, frogs, a lizard and guns

Ditch told the officers that his uncle had gone to live with a caretaker sometime before the COVID-19 pandemic. But he couldn't provide a name or a company. He kept looking at something in the woods on the north side of the property, charges say.

"After Detective Burns and I departed," Salem Patrolman Trenton Stephenson wrote in a probable cause statement, "we discussed Brian's behavior, and both agreed Brian was showing signs similar to that of deceptive subjects."

Stephenson then spoke with Ditch's ex-wife. She said when she moved into the house on Main Street, Ditch gave her a warning: Never go into the garage.

But she eventually got curious, court records say, so she went inside. There, she found an apartment full of furniture and shoes by the door.

Ditch came outside to confront her, visibly distraught, court records say. He told her he was having an affair, and the apartment was where it happened.

On March 21, Salem police and the Dent County Sheriff's Department got a warrant to search Ditch's home. They found a green shed in the southwest part of the property. It was unlocked.

The Dent County Coroner said this week he is still waiting for DNA results. They may never know the official cause of death because the body was so decomposed, he said.

Inside the house, authorities also found snakes, frogs, a lizard and several guns.

Ditch was charged in March with stealing, evidence tampering, abandonment of a corpse and multiple charges of unlawful gun possession.

On Wednesday, a federal grand jury in Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ also indicted him on 11 federal charges, including wire fraud, identity theft and theft of government property.

Clubb's family is still trying to process what happened.

Clubb's brother, Denny Clubb, said he was angry. If he would've known what was happening, the family would've found a way to care for him. They're tight-knit, he said.

"I want him to go to prison," Denny Clubb said. "You reap what you sow."

Crowder says she still isn't sure how to feel. She's sad and angry, too. She has regrets for not finding out the truth sooner. She wants her cousin to face a fair penalty. But despite all of it, she still loves him.

"I know that's hard to understand because of what he did," she said, "but I'm just mad at the person that he is and the things that he's done."

RJ Ditch said he isn't speaking with his father. Instead, he's selling his dad's things — his snakes, his lizard, his knickknacks. 

In his wallet, RJ Ditch keeps a photo of his uncle from his military days.

"Tom was a really nice guy," he said. "He didn't deserve anything that happened to him."

A hearing in Ditch's federal case has not been set.