The father of a Benton County four-year-old girl (Jessica Mast) who died in 2020 has accepted a plea deal offered by prosecutors.
According to court officials, James Mast of Lincoln accepted a guilty plea deal to second-degree murder and first-degree assault. If Mast fully cooperates and doesn’t renege on the terms of his plea agreement, his six other counts will be dismissed.
Mast was originally charged with first-degree murder, three counts of armed criminal action, abuse or neglect of a child, first-degree assault, and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
According to court officials, when the sentencing hearing comes – it has not been scheduled – prosecutors will recommend “no more than life sentences” on both counts for Mast to be served concurrently.
Mast had been facing charges of second-degree murder, abuse of a child, child endangerment, assault and armed criminal action in the death of 4-year-old Jessica Mast, who was found dead on the floor in an upstairs bedroom of her family’s Benton County home just after 1 a.m. on Dec. 20, 2020, according to probable cause statements in the case.
Mast will not be sentenced until co-defendant Kourtney Aumen’s case is resolved. The four people charged in the case are Mary Mast and James Mast (the parents of Jessica Mast), Kourtney Aumen and Ethan Mast (no relation).
On December 19, 2020, Mast’s four-year-old daughter Jessica drowned after being dunked into an icy pond and beaten to death to remove a “demon.”
Benton County deputies responded at 1 am on December 20 to a rural home near Cole Camp and found the 4-year-old wrapped in a blanket on a bedroom floor.
Investigators said the girl was already dead and had “severe purple bruising” over her body, along with ruptured blisters. Sheriff Eric Knox said the girl’s parents also had been beaten along with a 2-year-old child. An infant son of the couple was apparently unharmed.
Ethan Mast told investigators that he and Aumen used a leather belt to beat the girl, the statement said. She was then taken to a pond behind the home, where she was “dunked” in the water on a day when high temperatures were in the 40's.
Mary Mast, Jessica’s mother, entered a guilty plea in January 2023 and is awaiting a sentencing date. Ethan Mast entered a guilty plea in February 2022 and is awaiting a sentencing date. Kourtney Aumen is currently being held on a mental health commitment order.
James Mast along with his wife Mary Mast and Ethan Mast are all currently being held in the Benton County Jail in Warsaw. Kourtney Aumen is residing in a Missouri mental facility. None of the defendants will be sentenced until Aumen is reevaluated and is determined to be fit to stand trial.
The young girl’s father, James Mast, told deputies that before his daughter had been found dead she had been “beaten, submerged in a pond, then left to freeze to death on the bank,” according to a statement from the Benton County Sheriff’s Department.
James told authorities that Jessica, his wife Mary and the couple’s other children had been subjected to weeks of abuse at the hands of their neighbors, who had been monitoring them through security cameras inside the home, according to the probable cause statements in the case.
James told investigators that he was often forced to watch the beatings and wasn’t allowed to intervene.
On the night Jessica died, Mary and James said their neighbors came over and beat Jessica with a belt before they forced Mary to take the child to a nearby pond and dip her naked into the water. James took her inside and back up to her bedroom, where she was later found dead.
Ethan Mast allegedly told authorities that he had beaten the family to remove “demons or evil,” while Aumen allegedly claimed she had carried out the abuse at the request of someone living in the home, according to the court records.
Aumen, who is facing charges of second-degree murder, abuse or neglect of a child resulting in death, first-degree assault or attempt, two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and three counts of armed criminal action, pleaded not guilty last year. Aumen had her case transferred to Webster County in January.
