The morning of Jan, 9, just outside the only courtroom in the Vernon County Courthouse in Nevada, MO, I looked David Jungerman in the eye and said:
“Did you kill him?”
I was speaking, of course, about Kansas City lawyer Thomas Pickert, who was gunned down in his front yard the morning of Oct. 25, 2017, after having walked his two young sons to school.
Jungerman hesitated just a second and, with a slight smile, replied:
“My attorney has told me not to answer any questions, so I’m not going to say I did, and I’m not going to say I didn’t.”
If I’d had any doubts about his guilt before then — I did not — that answer would have settled it. A man who is alleged to have killed someone when he didn’t would never say something like that.
It turns out, of course, that Jungerman did, indeed, kill Thomas Pickert the morning of Oct. 25. He had said so himself even before I interviewed him. The admission, made to an employee of his, came after another southwest Missouri court hearing on Nov. 16. It just took a while for the confession to surface.
…Today, in a development that many area residents have waited for a long time, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker charged the 80-year-old Jungerman with first-degree murder in Pickert’s slaying.
He already was being held without bond in connection with two other cases, including the one in southwest Missouri, and it now appears almost certain that Jungerman will never again see the light of day, except out the window of a jail or prison cell.
**
I have contended all along that Oct. 25, 2017, was the luckiest day of Jungerman’s life. He drove his own van to the scene of the murder in Brookside and shot Pickert in broad daylight, as Pickert stood in his front yard talking on his cellphone. My theory is — and has been — Jungerman shot Pickert with a rifle, probably while sitting in the driver’s seat of the van, parked across the street from Picker’s home.
Although two people, including Pickert’s wife, Dr. Emily Riegel, got at least a limited look at him, neither she nor a man who saw him while walking his dog could positively identify him. And no one got the van’s license plate number.
But it turns out, Jungerman was sufficiently dumb and reckless — the latter being his calling card the last 20 years or so of his life — that he incriminated himself.
The charging document says that when police recently executed search warrants at his home and business, one of the items they found was “an Olympus audio recorder with a recording.”
He had recorded himself at the Nov. 16 court hearing but had failed to turn it off afterward.
“Later,” the prosecutor’s office said in a news release said, “the defendant talked to his employee about a .17-caliber rifle and about killing the victim.”
**
Have you heard the term “hoist with his own petard”?
It means blowing yourself up with your own bomb.
That’s what David Jungerman did. Thank God.
**
Here’s what a .17-caliber rifle looks like…
A website called RifleShooter says this about the weapon…
“Seventeen-caliber rifles are just a little bit magic. They shoot whisper-tiny projectiles the same diameter as the BBs we all loved to pop away with as kids. They produce almost no discernable recoil. Even the report of most .17-caliber guns is mild, particularly that of rimfire versions.
“Yet the little pills zipped downrange from .17-caliber rifles shoot with lazer-like flatness and produce surprisingly impressive results on small game and predators. Depending on the size of the cartridge case housing the tiny bullets, performance ranges from mostly suitable for rodents inside 200 yards to deadly on bigger predators out to 400 yards.”
…Just the kind of weapon Jungerman needed for his mission in Brookside on Oct. 25.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Please tell me they can nail the employee for something for not turning him in, or is this person a cooperating witness who told the police where to look? Unbelievable. That poor family…
I met the employee down in Nevada. His name is Leo Wynne, and he’s worked for Jungerman for many years. I don’t know what his legal exposure is.
When Shakespeare used the term “hoist with one’s own petard,” it was slang drawing from the French meaning of the word, which is fart. Can you see the scene now — a person sitting there quietly, who lets out a fart with so much force that it lifts the farter up from his chair? Embarrassing, huh.
I wondered about the etymology, Tom. There wasn’t a lot of bomb making in Shakespeare’s time.
This is great news and I’m for Pickert’s family that he will be held accountable for the crime. I also hope that they take his estate to the cleaners and get every last penny David Jungermann has.
I told you this guy could not keep his “accomplishment” to himself. He had to share it. The cops knew that it was just a matter of time before he ran his big mouth to the wrong person (or, as the case would be, thing) and give the cops all the evidence they needed. It will be interesting to hear his lawyer argue that the tape doesn’t constitute positive evidence since the person on the tape is a liar and an unreliable witness.
Quoting John Altevogt from a Dec. 14, 2017, post:
“His arrogance is what will bring him down.”
Here are a few interesting tidbits I found in the charging documents, which I’ve now had a chance to read in full…
:: From surveillance footage from traffic cameras, businesses, residences and two ATA buses, detectives were able to determine that Jungerman’s white Chevy van was driven from the area of Raytown, where Jungerman lived, to Pickert’s neighborhood an hour before Pickert’s murder.
:: One witness told police that a few days after the murder, he called Jungerman about a potential real estate deal and Jungerman answered the phone by saying, “Murder Inc., this is David.”
:: In the recorded conversation with his employee — the conversation in which he admitted killing Pickert — Jungerman said that members of the media knew he had killed Pickert but added that “nobody can figure out what’s going on, you know?”
:: The employee replied, “I hope they don’t never figure it out.”
:: Another witness told police about a March conversation in which Jungerman “stated he had killed a lawyer with a gun and gotten away with it. He did it because the lawyer stole his money.”
For his family and the rest of us, I am so glad that he’s apparently off the streets for good. I grieve for his widow and children.
Jim, thank you very much for keeping us apprised of the significant facts and events around this case. Your reporting has been terrific, so much more illuminating than what I’ve seen elsewhere.
Thanks, Bob…We can all rest a bit easier today. My heart goes out to Dr. Riegel and her and Tom’s two young sons. I think about them frequently. This will have been the best day they’ve had in a long time…but still not good.
Yes, this is the best news since Oct. 25th. First time I have felt true peace. To reiterate what others have said, heartfelt thank you and gratitude for your service Jimmy. I hope to meet and shake your hand some day.
Thanks. I guess I’d accept an anonymous handshake…
But in the end no retribution will bring back the father, husband & citizen. The only punishment I can appreciate as acceptable is for dear David to watch his entire estate awarded to Thomas’s family. But, even that ignoble end is not sufficient. Thanks for your follow thru. Like most train wrecks fascinating from a distance. A pox on Jungerman, his seed and the NRA.
Well expressed, Jayson.
Except for the NRA part. Most inappropriate and irrelevant at this juncture.