Among the people I thought about yesterday — people whose Thanksgivings did not match up to the stereotypical “perfect day” — were Dr. Emily Riegel and her two young sons.
Dr. Riegel was recently widowed, and her children de-fathered, by a cruel, calloused individual who shot and killed 39-year-old lawyer Thomas Pickert — outside the Pickert/Riegel home the morning of Oct. 25.
It is for Dr. Riegel and those boys that public pressure must be brought to bear on the Kansas City Police Department and Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, until charges are filed and a conviction is achieved.
In that vein, I obtained the transcript of the last day of the five-day trial that resulted in Pickert winning a $5.75 million civil judgment against the man who seemingly had the strongest motive — combined with a propensity for gun violence — to kill Pickert.
Police have said that man, 79-year-old David Jungerman of Raytown, is “not a suspect at this time.” I don’t believe it. A lawyer with close ties to the prosecutor’s office has told me Jungerman is, indeed, the prime suspect, and a second well-connected lawyer told me earlier this week that the police department’s careful public statements about Jungerman “could be some very skillful misinformation just to get him comfortable.”
There’s a lot of interesting material in the 109 pages of proceedings from that last day of trial, July 28, and I will be bringing the highlights to you today and in days to come.
One of the main reasons I wanted that transcript is that police said in a warrant application for Jungerman’s white van — similar to one spotted at the murder scene on Oct. 25 — that after the verdict was announced in the civil case, “Jungerman had an outburst in the courtroom where he cursed and yelled in a loud voice at court personnel, including the victim.”
Obviously, that could be a very strong piece of circumstantial evidence, particularly if Jungerman threatened Pickert.
I’m sure the police know exactly what Jungerman said in court that day, but, unfortunately, the outburst occurred after the judge had dismissed the jury and after the judge and other key court personnel, including the court reporter, had left the room.
The last words uttered by the judge and recorded by the court reporter were:
“Now, I’m going to release the jury…If there’s nothing further, we will be adjourned…All right. Thank you.”
So much for my hopes of hearing exactly what Jungerman said to Pickert a few minutes later.
**
Another thing I was looking for in the transcript, particularly, was any indication of ill-will and tension between Pickert and Jungerman.
Stupidly, Jungerman, a multi-millionaire who could have afforded a top-notch lawyer, chose to represent himself. (He did go half-in, however, hiring a lawyer named Brian Gepford to advise and assist him.)
His decision to represent himself insured that there’d be plenty of interaction between himself and Pickert, the main attorney representing a homeless man, Jeffrey Harris, whom Jungerman had shot with an assault rifle after he caught Harris and another man trespassing on his property on Sept. 25, 2012. (While the two men were standing on a loading dock outside a building Jungerman owns, Jungerman shot them with an assault rifle. Harris was hit in the leg, which later had to be removed above the knee.)
Tension and tone often don’t come through in a transcript, and I could not detect a high level of tension between Pickert and Jungerman from Pickert’s questioning of the defendant on Day 5 of the trial. At only one point in that last day’s testimony was there an indication of a possible history of friction between Pickert and Jungerman.
That point came when Gepford questioned the defendant about hiring him to help with advice. The following exchange took place before the jury:
Gepford: You asked me as a lawyer to assist you in representing yourself in this case?
Jungerman: Yes, I did.
Gepford: But there’s been a long, and number of periods of time when you were…
Jungerman: And I would like to give the reason. The reason I contacted Mr. Gepford was the plaintiffs…
At this point, Pickert interrupted: Your honor…
The judge: Hang on just a moment. Let’s approach (the bench). You can come on up, Mr. Jungerman.
A conference was then held at the bench outside the jury’s hearing.
Pickert: I have no idea what he is going to say, but he’s started to accuse me and this has nothing to do with — this is totally irrelevant to this stage of why he chose to hire him as an attorney.
The judge upheld Pickert’s objection, and when questioning before the jury resumed, Gepford went in a completely different direction.
**
As I said earlier, testimony from that last day in court reveals much interesting information, including Jungerman’s propensity to resolve problems with guns…like a rogue sheriff without commission, training or concern for the safety of others.
Another interesting aspect of the case is that Jungerman never expressed remorse about shooting Harris and the other man on Sept. 25, 2012. Not only that; more than once on Day 5 he insisted he — not Harris or his companion — was the real victim.
…More to come.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Lynch him?
That’s his style of justice, not mine.
I sincerely hope that Dr. Riegel sues this arrogant, sociopathic POS, or his estate, in civil court for every penny he has left after the first judgement which led to the murder of her husband and father of her children.
Interesting you should mention that, Liselotte…That prospect smacks of the O.J. Simpson/Ron Goldman case, in which Goldman’s parents won a $19.5 million civil award against Simpson after Simpson was acquitted in the murders of Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.
The bar is not as high in a civil trial, and I guess that would be possible. We need to be patient in regard to criminal charges, however. It can take a long time for key pieces of evidence to surface.
In OJ’s case, there was a protracted criminal trial and he was found not guilty. He was then taken to “Civil Court” with a lower threshold, and lost.
In this case, the police apparently investigated and did not find enough evidence to even bring it to Criminal Court.
I don’t know the origins or rationale of “Civil Court”, but in these two instances, it seems absurd.
The standard in civil trials is usually a “preponderance of the evidence”, a much lower standard than the standard in criminal trials of “beyond a reasonable doubt”. The beauty of criminal trials is that once sentence is passed the defendant pays the penalty assigned by the judge. In civil cases (such as the OJ case) the plaintiffs may never collect a dime of what seems like a huge award.
The Goldmans really did it to O.J…Since Simpson wasn’t able to pay the $19.5 million, Goldman’s parents obtained the rights to Simpson’s book, “If I Did It,” a first-person account of how he would have committed the murders had he committed them.
Wikipedia says: “They were granted the proceeds from the book in 2007 as part of the…jury award against him they had been trying to collect for over a decade. They own the copyright, media rights, and movie rights. They also acquired Simpson’s name, likeness, life story, and right of publicity in connection with the book, according to court documents, ensuring he would not be able to profit from the book. After renaming the book ‘If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer,’ the Goldman family published it in September 2007 through Beaufort Books.”
Pinned his ass to the wall financially.
Fitz, had Jungerman uttered his outburst in hearing of the judge he would have been hit with a contempt citation and probably done some jail time.
Under the heading you heard it here first, the Costco shooter was stopped by an off duty KCK cop in yet another example of a good guy with a gun…
Fox 4 now reporting that the Costoco shooter was shot by an off duty cop, but they don’t know from where (KCK).
It’s a good thing he was there and knew what to do and how to handle it.
I seem to have a lot of friends around who seem to shop a lot and witness these things. That would seem to be yet another argument for institutional memory and for keeping older reporters around instead of trying to cut corners.
Am is misreading your comment? Are you saying you have a lot of friends who witnessed shootings by perps or police while shopping? If so, I must say our experiences differ. Not to minimize the risks of violent crime in public places, but none of this has happened to me and I don’t recall anything similar happening to my acquaintances…thank God. Anyway, I’m grateful the officer was at the scene and took appropriate action to protect others.
Bob — John walks on the wild side.
Fitz may remember after the shooting at Walmart on Shawnee that a friend sent me pictures of the scene (which I shared here). In this case, I had three different sources tell me (long before the TV stations got it and with more specificity than they have even now) that the good guy was an off-duty KCK cop. I get this because I, like Fitz with his lawyer friends above, know a lot of people who share these things with me because they know I care. I mentioned that as an analogy to The Star laying off seasoned reporters who have developed contacts over the years and replacing them with people who aren’t even sure where the bathroom is.
Have your sources told you who the shooter was? I understand next of kin notification but seems like they’ve had time for that.
I see they’ve identified him, but no details.