All of us Kansas City residents can breathe easier tonight, knowing that, in all likelihood, the Indian Creek Trail killer has been apprehended.
Although it is not certain, it appears 22-year-old Fredrick D. Scott of Kansas City is a serial killer.
Scott has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is suspected in three other homicides. He is in the Jackson County Jail — thank God — on $1 million bond. His last known address was in the 3300 block of Bridge Manor Drive, which is just south of Red Bridge Road, between College and Cleveland — very close to the Indian Creek Trail.
Indications are that Scott’s M.O. was arbitrarily selecting prospective victims, following them on foot and then executing them with one or more shots to the head.
Scott
In a tense and riveting 13-minute news conference — and in accompanying documents — Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker today laid out the chilling details of the most recent murder and uttered these extremely unsettling words:
“There is no motive that makes this make sense.”
No logical motive, that is.
But there is, I’m afraid, one awful, disturbing fact: Scott is an angry young black man who apparently took perverse satisfaction in killing white men.
The house where Scott was living. It is very near Indian Creek Trail, scene of four murders in the last year.
Why was he angry? He has told police he was upset about the murder of his brother in 2015. I don’t know — and Peters didn’t say — if his brother was killed by a white person. Watching the news conference, I did not hear any question relating to that point, although most of the questions were muffled because of poor audio.
I’d sure like to have the answer and hope reporters working the story want to find out.
Racially, this is a highly sensitive case, but reporters and their editors must not shrink from the facts. In the coming days, the public needs and deserves a lot more information about Scott’s background and the factors that may have motivated him.
**
Scott is charged in the slayings of 54-year-old John W. Palmer and 57-year-old Steven Gibbons.
A “probable cause statement” filed by the prosecutor’s office says Scott admitted killing Palmer, one of the four Indian Creek victims. Palmer was shot several times with a 9mm handgun on Aug. 16, 2016, near Bannister Road and Lydia. Scott told police that after shooting Palmer, he dragged his body away from the trail and into a tree line.
The three other Indian Creek Trail victims were 66-year-old David Lenox, who was killed Feb. 27 of this year near 99th and Walnut; 57-year-old Timothy Rice, killed April 4 north of Red Bridge Road just east of Lydia; and 61-year-old Mike Darby, who was killed May 18 in the 300 block of West 101st Terrace, not far from the bar he owned, Coach’s, at 103rd and Wornall.
The killing that broke open the case, however, did not occur along the trail. As often happens, once a serial killer gets going and building up confidence, his horizons expand.
Surveillance video shows that on Aug. 14 — two weeks ago yesterday — Steven Gibbons got on an ATA bus at 75th and Troost shortly before noon, and a man got on behind him. At 67th and Troost, Gibbons got off, and the other man followed him down 67th Street.
The probable cause statement says the man following Gibbons was drinking a beverage with a screw top. The camera, mounted on a building near 67th and Troost, then panned away about the time Gibbons would have been shot. A short time later the same camera captured the unknown man running from the scene.
**
Some good investigative work led police to Scott. Remember the line about “the unknown man” drinking from a screw-top container? Detectives found a bottle near the scene of the Gibbons killing. Police were then able to track the killer back to a gas station at 75th and Troost, where he had purchased the beverage (which The Star reported was iced tea). Surveillance footage from the gas station showed Scott purchasing the iced tea.
A few days later, a police officer saw a man resembling the presumed killer sitting on a wall, smoking a cigarette, near 97th and Holmes. When approached by one or more officers, the man identified himself as Frederick Scott. After the conversation, police recovered the butt of the cigarette, and undercover officers followed Scott to his home on Bridge Manor Drive. Later, police linked the DNA from the cigarette butt to that on the iced tea bottle. At the home, police also recovered a 9mm handgun that Scott said killed Gibbons.
Police also have DNA evidence linking Scott to Palmer’s murder. Searching the scene of that homicide, detectives found a T-shirt that was too small for Palmer.
On the shirt, police found DNA from two people: Palmer and Frederick Scott.
**
The probable cause statement says Scott mowed lawns to make money and that for a three-week period in July and mid-August he worked he worked at the Burger King restaurant, Red Bridge Road and Holmes. He did not have a vehicle, and the probable cause statement says: “His two primary modes of transportation were walking and the KCATA bus lines. But he had been known to ask for rides from neighbors or associates.” He told police he was familiar with the Indian Creek Trail.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Given my many biking expeditions…although I don’t go east of State Line on the trail…this is such a relief! Thanks for the detail, Jim…hope all is well.
Good to hear from you, Lisa. Be careful out there.
His brother was killed by a black man, Jimmie Verge. Verge was sentenced to 45 years in jail.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article141154488.html
Thanks, KB…Do you know which of the victims in that case — Gerald Woods or Fanandous Groves — might be Scott’s brother?
Gerrod H. Woods. From the KC Star article:
“While the motive in the killings remains unclear, Scott ‘repeatedly’ told investigators that he was angry about the 2015 shooting death of his brother, Gerrod H. Woods, 23.”
My son just texted me and says he worked with Mr. Scott at the Pizza Hut at 101st and Wornall, which also happens to be within spitting distance of the site of two murders that he is linked to. Nathan says this alleged murderer had two stints at the Pizza Hut. First stint, he was a “goofy teen-ager.” Second stint, “seemed very weird.” Bad employee too.
Great information, Mike. Thanks. Your son’s observation is evidence of Scott’s evolution to a demented state of mind.
KB: Thanks again. The Star didn’t have that information in its online version last night. I’m glad to see the reporters kept at it.
On the other hand…The Star, while saying all the victims were white, conspicuously avoided the subject of whether the defendants in the killing of Scott’s brother were white or black. They were (are) black.
The question remains, then, why did he decide to target white men? I seriously doubt it was happenstance. He was methodical about these killings and obviously took perverse pleasure in them.
My take? He was a frustrated young man and a flat-out racist.
Another bit of information from my other son, who currently works at this Pizza Hut, is that Lenox worked at Pizza Hut too. Lenox was the one who lived at Willow Creek Apartments, which is right across the street from the Pizza Hut. If it’s true that Lenox worked at Pizza Hut, I hope the police will ask Scott if he knew Lenox.
And whereas I agree with you that this appears to be a man who was deliberately targeting middle-aged white males, I am truly dreading the racial-pandering circus that right-wing media is going to turn this case into.
This is a time to be thankful that The Star has such a limited, low-profile commenting policy. You’ve gotta have a Facebook page to make a comment and even then the comments are posted under the click-bait teasers. The system is meant to deter comments, and it’s effective.
And the fact that Derek blocked anyone critical of The Star makes it even more restricted.
Mike, I think the media themselves have to take the blame for some of the racial animus associated with these cases. It has become a standard joke in the comments section of these cases when the race of the perpetrator is not mentioned that it was probably the Amish and already comparisons are being made to the case of the two engineers in Olathe. As one local blogger stated “A Google search of Olathe shooter “Adam Purinton” nets 192,000 hits.”
If the media would just perform their job of being an honest broker of information I think people would simply read the news and move on, but the obvious bias simply adds fuel to the fire.
Re:
“The question remains, then, why did he decide to target white men? I seriously doubt it was happenstance. He was methodical about these killings and obviously took perverse pleasure in them.
My take? He was a frustrated young man and a flat-out racist.”
Wow.
As a longtime newspaper guy (reporter, managing editor, editor), I read this and just …. I realize this is a blog, and filled with opinion, but it still shakes me that you were a reporter for many years, and then an assistant editor or associate editor or whatever at the Star for many years. Really? You’ve lost a lot of respect from me, a 60-year-old white male, from your knee-jerk take. Will have trouble sleeping tonight knowing that’s the kind of leadership editors gave reporters at the Star for years on stories: “Go prove this guy was a flat-out racist!”
Just sayin’. Wow.
Check tonight’s KC Star story out — then be sure to get back with me.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article170340652.html
I just checked it out, and I am making sure to get back to you.
I can tell by your quick reply that we will just never agree on this, but I will make some quick points.
My astonishment was your “take.” I.E. He is a frustrated young man and a flat-out racist.”
The Star story you reference even further concerns me with the headline and lede.
“Kill all white people” in headline — and lede (along with shooting up his school, which for certain wasn’t all white, if he went there.)
If you read the story, he also threatened to shoot up the entire school; refused to get treatment for paranoid schizophrenia ***; and assaulted his mother — an African American; and wanted to kill himself.
Lookit: My point is this story doesn’t have as much to do with race or “flat-out racism” as it has to do with a guy who was/is obviously messed up. Mentally ill. Pretty sure all serial killers are. Just don’t think a knee-jerk reaction to call him a “flat-out racist” (or “frustrated,” for that matter) was the wisest choice of words. I thought, and think, you can do better.
Again, I’m sure two rational people can agree to disagree.
A few questions for the Star and the Prosecutor:
1. The mother claims her son suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. Is this her diagnosis, or is this a doctor’s? When was this made, when was the last session, and what, if anything, was said to the psychiatrist?
2. Why was the 180-day sentence for saying “I want to shoot the school up” and “Kill all white people” suspended, and what does “Intense” supervision mean? Did the Star put this in quotes, or was it in the sentence? If this was so serious he was ordered to stay away from the school, how did he graduate from the school, and why does his mom not remember anything about the issue?
3. When did he graduate, and what has he been doing in the last 3-4 years?
4. Knowing what we know just in the Star’s article, how can the prosecutor say “She saw no clear motive.”
5. What Police specifically said “They did not know if the shootings were racially motivated.”
6. What % of people who kill 5 or more people are “mentally ill”?
I am saddened by the degree of violence in our city. More gun stores than Quick Trips. What do we do?
That says it all, Bill. That’s the problem at its core. And all the prayer vigils, anti-hate protests and the like haven’t changed a thing…It’s the guns and the increasing disrespect among more and more people for the value of every human life; we’re stuck.
For me, the question is why those specific white men? I’m sure those trails have many, many opportunities for a shooter to find an isolated victim. And, the final one where he got on the bus and apparently stalked his final victim raises that question even further. OK, so he said he wanted to kill all white people, but he didn’t try to kill all white people, he selected very specific white people. What was his criteria?
As for the guns, you don’t solve any problems by disarming honest citizens. Guys like this will always get a weapon. The Sandy Hook shooter violated over twenty existing gun laws making it rather ridiculous to assume that one more law would have helped the situation.
What was needed there, and here, was a good guy with a gun to dissuade the nut. Normally, people who exercise don’t carry weapons, so it was a safe bet for him to start there.
That said, the murder rate in KC is currently 10X what it is in NYC and so clearly someone needs to start addressing something besides trying to control a variable that is beyond control.