BOURBON, Mo. – It was a mystery for months in Bourbon, Missouri, after Jamie Peters was found unconscious outside of her car in the middle of the road.
Peters, 41, continues to struggle with a brain injury following an August 2021 road rage incident. She’s still learning to talk and walk again with the help of her boyfriend, Cullen Oldham.
“For us, it’s going to be a lifetime sentence,” Oldham said.
But now she can concentrate solely on her healing.
“I can’t feel my face on this side at all,” Peters said, explaining her partial paralysis.
Last month, a judge sentenced Joseph Voisey, the man who attacked Peters, to seven years in prison.
“I was so relieved,” Peters said.
The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office began its investigation with few leads.
Surveillance video revealed a mystery driver following Peters’ car on Highway JJ back in 2021, as they continued four miles into Bourbon. Eyewitnesses saw bits and pieces of what happened in town.
One man, who did not want to be identified, told us back then, “He did a roundhouse on her, complete around, and she flew through the air 15 feet.”
Sheriff’s investigators said they identified Voisey by tracking cellphone activity at the crime scene during the time of the assault. Search warrants revealed the suspect Googled, “Can they charge you for assault in Missouri if they have no evidence it was you?”
After two years of court proceedings, Voisey pleaded guilty to second-degree assault. The judge sentenced Voisey to the maximum seven years possible under the plea deal.
“We wanted more, but the prosecutor had come back to us and talked with us and decided it was going to be hard to prove his intent was to harm Jamie, so we all talked and discussed it together, and decided to take the plea deal and move it down, and we knew there was a chance there could be even less than seven years,” Cullen said.
Voisey’s spouse answered our request for comment, writing, “He would do anything to change how this ended.”
She said he was trying to do the right thing and also tried to call police for help when he was attacked by Jamie Peters.” She added, “He open-hand smacked this girl away from him, when she attacked him, and she fell and hit her head on the ground. That is what caused her injury.”
“He made a big mistake, and I think he realizes it now, and I think him sitting in that prison is going to give him time to think about his actions,” Oldham said.
Peters’ family set up a GoFundMe for assistance with her recovery.