On Thursday, January 31, 2013, Taney County Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Merrell named R. Tiffany Yarnell his office’s Chief Assistant Prosecutor. Yarnell is just the second Chief Assistant Prosecutor to serve in the six (6) years Merrell has been Taney County’s Prosecuting Attorney. Christopher Lebeck previously held the position of Chief Assistant Prosecutor for the Taney County office, before leaving in 2011 to take a similar position in the Christian County Prosecutor’s Office.

“Tiffany has been a prosecutor for over seven (7) years, and five (5) of those years in our office,” says Merrell. “She has demonstrated that she is tough, but fair. Those are the exact traits that I want modeled for all of the prosecutors in my office. These characteristics show through in her work every day, and for the past five (5) years she has demonstrated that she shares my desire to protect the people of Taney County.”

Yarnell is the longest-tenured Assistant Prosecutor in Merrell’s office, having started on December 3, 2007. Before that, she served as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in the Greene County Prosecutor’s Office. She is a 2002 graduate of Columbia College, and a 2005 graduate of the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law.