CASSVILLE, Mo. – Residents in Cassville, Missouri are still shocked, even shaken after two separate events over 10 days have left three people dead. 

“It’s just been one deal after the next, and so it’s kind of caught everybody off guard,” Gene Robbins, the Barry County Southern Commissioner said. “Cassville has been hit hard the last couple of weeks, and just the general consensus is everybody’s just in all like, ‘what is going on?’. We’re a very tight-knit community and people are concerned.”

“It’s been rough, you know, for a couple of weeks or so around here,” Jeff Fugitt with the Cassville United Methodist Church said. “There are some other events as well, so this is just another kind of layer on that. So, yeah, we’re hurting tonight.”

On May 21, Dr. John Forsyth disappeared from a Cassville Park.

His body was found Tuesday in Northwest Arkansas.

“There’s still a lot unknown about a lot of those things that have happened. It all hasn’t came out.” Robbins said.

Wednesday night, a 19-year-old and a 14-year-old on a motorcycle died in a crash on Highway 248, a mile east of Cassville.

“Most people in town, especially the ones that have been here any length of time, have some sort of connections,” Fugitt said. “So many family, extended family, school communities, all kinds of ripple effects.”

The two KOLR 10 spoke to say the city isn’t just supporting each other but rallying to become stronger.

“We try to look after each other. [We’re a] very family oriented, conservative, um, God-fearing Christian community,” Robbins said. “It’s just amazing the tragedies that’s hit all at once.  Our thoughts and prayers are with those that have lost loved ones the last few weeks.”

“You see the best of the community as people kind of gathers around them and reach out and try to support them,” Fugitt said. “That’s part of what makes, you know, the small town special is that everybody does rally around and, you know, I know that the folks that are suffering right now have a lot of people that care about them.”