I would bet a hundred bucks that the most-read story in the print edition of Saturday’s Kansas City Star was the one about the four young dipsticks who robbed a guy in Independence Wednesday night after the only girl in the group invited the victim — whom she knew — to meet him and have sex with her.
The story ran at the top of A4, which features local news.
There are two reasons this was probably the most-read story in the paper:
1) The defendants are white.
2) The perps were incredibly stupid.
The latter point always makes for a good read, and the former…well, let’s just say it’s not very often that you see four mugs shots of white people stripped under a crime story.
Three of the defendants look like they might be high-school students; two are 18 and one, the woman, is 19.
For the record, the defendants are Sydney M. Adams, the woman; Zachary A. Donahoo and Tristen W. Bishop, the 18-year-olds; and 23-year-old James T. Hunter. All four are charged with robbery and kidnapping.
As for the dumb-criminal dimension, like I said, the victim knew Adams, apparently very well. The story describes Adams as an “old friend” of the man she solicited.
So, if you’re planning a robbery — and you don’t intend to kill the victim — why would you solicit someone who knows you and can identify you? What would possibly make Adams think she and her compatriots could get away with it????
If you haven’t read the story, here’s what happened, in a nutshell: The guy arrives at the residence and Adams meets him wearing only a towel. She directs him to a bedroom, where he is confronted by the three guys, one of whom has a gun. They rob him, take him for a ride and release him. An Independence police officer spots him — he’s wearing only boxers and shoes — and interviews him. The gig is up.
Longtime Independence reporter Brian Burnes did a good job with the story — just played it straight and let the head-scratching facts carry it. Also deserving credit are the editors who decided to play the story prominently and strip the mug shots below the headline.
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Too bad we don’t always see such good editorial judgment.
On Tuesday, The Star ran a three-paragraph under the headline “Kansas man gets four years for beheading man with guitar string.”
I don’t know if the story ran in a print edition. Bill Barnhart, a reader of the blog, called it to my attention.
Bill wrote: “The Star has been reporting about this guy that killed another man with a piano or guitar wire and was sentenced to only four years. How could something like that happen? It doesn’t seem right. Have you heard anything more about that one?”
Great question.
When I got to checking, I found The Star’s three-paragraph story, which The Star picked up from the Associated Press.
The story, out of Lyndon, KS, about 20 miles south of Topeka, said a man named James Paul Harris, 30, was sentenced Monday in Osage County District Court for involuntary manslaughter in the death of 49-year-old James Gerety. It went on to say that Harris originally was charged with first-degree murder but pleaded no contest to the reduced charge in December.
The Star’s version of the AP story gave no indication whatsoever why the charge was drastically reduced and why Harris got only four years.
But when I Googled the AP story, I found a couple of versions that offered more information. One key sentence that The Star omitted said the prosecution was hamstrung by ‘credibility issues’ with a major witness.
That sheds a little light on the issue, but not much. I got the full story on the website of the Topeka Capital-Journal, which had sent a reporter to Lyndon to do an in-depth story. The story included these paragraphs:
The prosecutor’s office accepted the plea to the less serious homicide charge of involuntary manslaughter because prosecuting James Gerety’s slaying as a premeditated first-degree murder faced challenges, Osage County Attorney Brandon Jones said.
Other than a portion of the victim’s skull, prosecutors didn’t have the victim’s body, the murder weapon hadn’t been recovered, not all the prosecution witnesses were available, and prosecutors faced “credibility issues” with a major witness, Jones said.
“It was going to be a tough case to prosecute,” Jones said.
That explains why the prosecutor was willing to accept a plea bargain with a four-year sentence in a gruesome case.
The Star’s handling of the story, on the other hand, was nothing less than a disservice was to its readers.
A good rule of thumb — and I don’t know if I’ve heard this before or if I’m just coming up with it now — is that if a story poses more questions than it provides answers, it’s better to not run it at all, if you’re not willing to take the time to run down the answers.
In the case of the guitar-cord slaying, KC Star editors were just plain lazy.
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One other Star note. Some of you have probably noticed that for most Kansas City Royals’ night games, The Star is now reporting the final score and a few bulleted highlights, instead of full game coverage. There are two reasons for that: The Star has gone to earlier deadlines, and it is trying to push more traffic to the website. Another upcoming change is a redesign of the print edition and the website.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
That’s the one out of Osage County where the judge was also hamstrung by sentencing guidelines. Previous offenses had been wiped from the books, etc. The Cap-Journal had a very good story on this with a horrible headline that made the judge and prosecutor look like idiots if you didn’t take the time to read the details.
http://cjonline.com/news/2015-04-06/james-paul-harris-sentenced-just-over-4-years-garroting-killing
Thanks for the link, John.
I’m wondering if the guy in the first case wasn’t married and that was the reason the thieves thought they could get away with it. The story failed to mention his marital status.
That’s the only thing I could come up with, too, John — that the perps theorized he wouldn’t report it out of embarrassment. When the cops found him walking along Missouri 78 in his boxers, that put an end to any prospect of him not talking.
I’m interested in your postscript. Are you saying the Star deliberately kept results out of the print edition to “encourage” me to go to the website? There was a NASCAR race that ended at 10:15 last night that also didn’t make the print edition.
If this is the case, why do I bother to subscribe?
Fortunately, they are running the results of the games, but, like I said, just the final score and a couple of bulleted highlights. They are trying to wean readers away from the print and to the website. Also, with earlier deadlines, there’s some economizing — you don’t need as many people working late into the night. It’s probably not a bad strategy from their standpoint; print just isn’t working well any more.
Their deadline is 10:30 most nights of the week now, so if the game ain’t over by then you’re not even going to get a final score.
10:30!
Thanks for the information; I didn’t know exactly what the new deadline is. For some reason, they don’t call me with detailed information…I guess when we have the first game that goes past 10:30, we’ll see what we get.
I realize they played last night on the West Coast. The game ended about 10:45 as I recall. There was no score in my morning print edition today. And, I live in the city, I received the Kansas City Edition. I might be getting cranky but it just seems lazy to me.
Mine had the final score and three bullet points at the top of the page. Accompanying text referred readers to Saturday’s “game story” on B9. The fact that the paper had a game story surprised me, so we get in the print edition could vary from one day to the next. We’ll soon find out…I do know that the Sports Dept. was unhappy when editor Mike Fannin announced in February that earlier deadlines were on the way.