I tell you, when you leaf through the pages of The Star or check its website periodically, you have to steel yourself for the horrific stories you often read.
I’m talking about the stories of mayhem and violence — stories laid out in neat columns under unemotional headlines that don’t begin to reflect the upheaval and sorrow that the underlying events have wrought on Kansas City area families.
If you’re a feeling person, these are not stories you can read and dismiss and flip to the next page. They scorch the soul.
It’s absolutely tragic that we have so many such incidents — and stories — in our area. But Kansas City isn’t Mayberry. For all its fountains, the Country Club Plaza, Ward Parkway, Zona Rosa, Hawthorne Plaza etc., this is a big, gritty metro area where awful things happen every day.
Take a closer look at some of the perpetrators and victims whose stories have been starkly chronicled in black and white.
:: Twenty-four-year-old Caitlin Vogel of Stilwell died Tuesday night when a car driven by an incorrigible drunk driver, James Richard McAllister, ran a stop sign at 191st and Nall and broadsided Vogel’s vehicle. Twenty four years old. Just starting her adult life and her job as an autism instructional assistant in the Olathe School District. Think about the patience and dedication it takes to work with autistic kids day after day. to society’s benefit, Vogel did it…She should not have died, and McAllister is the worst sort of uncaring punk. He’s 27 and has at least two prior DUI convictions. He’s charged with involuntary manslaughter, which, unfortunately, is about the strongest crime that can arise from an unintentional vehicular death.
:: Far away from that scene but still in the Metro area, 58-year-old Michael R. Sear of KCK was killed early last Saturday when he was rear-ended on Interstate 29, not far from KCI, by 24-year-old Nicholas N. Sanders. Rear-ended! Can you imagine how fast Sanders had to be going to kill a someone with his vehicle while traveling in the same direction?
Get this…Sanders’ blood alcohol content was a stratospheric .313 — the highest I’ve ever heard of in a DUI case and nearly four times the legal limit of .08.
Sanders, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter, told investigators he had drunk three beers and three shots of whiskey earlier that evening at a Kansas City bar. My guess is he underestimated by about 10 of each.
Kyle Van Winkle and infant son
:: In Jackson County Circuit Court Wednesday, 27-year-old Joshua T. Bradley pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was placed on five years probation for beating Kyle Van Winkle to death in the Arrowhead Stadium parking lot in 2013. Van Winkle, a credit union employee, was essentially drunk and harmless after having accidentally gotten in the wrong vehicle during a Chiefs’ game. Through a confluence of stupid events, including the young son of the “wrong-car” owner yelling that the interloper had stolen cookies (cookies!) from the car, Bradley came along and beat the crap out of Van Winkle, even continuing to punch him after Van Winkle was down and defenseless…At the time, Van Winkle and his wife had a seven-week-old son.
Bradley’s family must have money because they were able to hire one of the best defense attorneys in town, Patrick Peters, who lined up an expert witness — a physician — who would have testified that Van Winkle died of a stroke…The only saving part of this is that if Bradley screws up on probation, he will have to start serving a 7-year sentence that the judge suspended in favor of probation.
:: A 16-month-old boy will not have a chance to enjoy his childhood and grow up to be an adult, apparently because 31-year-old Nathaniel A. Littlefield of Kansas City beat the boy to death after the boy’s mother went to work and left her son in Littlefield’s care. The Star’s story says, “Littlefield admitted to repeatedly striking the child in the face and head, but he said he did so in an attempt to revive him.” I guess Littlefield wants us to thank him for his resuscitation effort. He’s charged with child abuse and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
:: And this just in…34-year-old Randy Michael Garrison of Orrick in Ray County was charged with two counts of second-degree murder for allegedly abandoning his two young sons to die in a 2013 fire. Three-year-old Roger Garrison and 1-year-old Ashton Garrison died in a trailer fire on Dec. 10, 2013 in Orrick. His own sons…The ultimate irony here? Weeks after the fire, friends and former Excelsior Springs classmates raised money and donated household items to Garrison.
Sadly, we live among a significant number of vicious and irresponsible people — people who will take a life and think very little of it.
What can we do about it? Very little, very little — mostly just hope we don’t find ourselves in the intersection with the drunk stop-sign runner or sitting in the wrong car eating somebody else’s cookies.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Good commentary, Jim.
Thanks, Les.
I will echo Les. These stories are hard to read. And as a former reporter, they were hard to write. I remember idiots like Tom Leathers complaining about The Star and TV stations giving attention to these “negative” stories. Trust me, no journalist wishes anything like this to happen. But it does. And readers have to be reminded of the fragility of life.
Jackson County may well have some of the best judges money can buy. In a case a few years back a kid by the name of Curtis Mertensmeyer got drunk and smacked a pedestrian so hard that he severed his legs. He then fled the scene. Fortunately for young Mertensmeyer mommy is a high dollar Mission Hills shyster and young Curtis got off with 120 days (days that is) in the hoosegow. He then sued his college fraternity claiming that hazing caused post traumatic stress disorder and that is what led to his hit-and-run.
And in another example of money uber justice, Rhonda “Three Wheel” Lokeman, the spousal unit of former Star publisher Mark Zieman got tanked and was caught in downtown KCMO driving in a vehicle with only three wheels and no idea of where number four was. Three Wheel refused to take a breathalyzer, an act that supposedly gets your license yanked and was carted off to jail.
Again, thanks to the availability of “understanding” local judges Three Wheel did not lose her license. A judge found some reason to allow her to keep it in a miracle of judicial flexibility and in spite of the clear cut legal prescription to have it pulled and then the case was sent into limbo.
When i checked months later i found that the case had never been reported to the state and backtracking to the locals found that the whole thing had been settled out for a few hundred dollars in fines for unreportable offenses. A local anti-drunk driving advocate told me that cases like that were commonplace in Jackson County thanks to all of its “compassionate” judges. Again, fact check me, please.
Interestingly, in Kansas you can discuss your case with the prosecutor in person. Not so in Jackson County. If you want to discuss your case with county legal staff you must hire a shyster, and yes, they do have a list they’ll give you.
Great word, hoosegow. My father, a dandy wordsmith, was the first person I heard use it.
Assuming all these facts to be true, imagine being the loved one of one of these victims, fighting these injustices. How do these criminals stand themselves?
Everything except my phone call to the court system can easily be replicated via google. And, anyone with a phone, or any of the many journalists who read this blog could replicate my comments concerning the conclusion of the Lokeman case.
The policy concerning the requirement for an attorney to discuss any matters with the prosecutor were in effect when last I got a ticket, but may have changed since (I doubt it).
Also, if you get one of the $40 parking tickets from KCMO (last time I got one), you can also take that up for a hearing wherein the judge will tell you that they are authorized to settle the case for $14 (at that time), but they make it clear that you will not win your case.
In Kansas most speeding tickets can be reduced to a non-moving violation (and hence not be reported to either the state, or your insurance company) usually for double the fine. Some jurisdictions where tickets are essentially revenue enhancement, like Basehor, they also double the court costs. In Edwardsville, you don’t even have to go to court, you simply go to the clerk and tell them what you want and they charge accordingly. It’s always seemd like bribery to me, but then again, as the recipient of many a high-speed parking ticket, I do appreciate that aspect of the system.
In essence, most traffic courts are collection agencies for the locals (Mission, which writes 3 times the tickets as any other community in JOCO, according to The Star, also comes to mind) and fee generators for bottom scraping shysters.
Ah, a couple of other interesting tid bits about the Mertensmeyer case. The judge was John M. Torrence and neither of the stories in The Star regarding the sentencing allowed for comments.
Charges were filed against Lokeman in case #0916-CV00241 in Jackson County, Missouri court and appeared before Judge Margaret Sauer whose double jointed legal theories allowed Three Wheel to retain her license.
Perhaps a few editorials against judges like Torrence and Sauer might help cut down on the number of these stories.