In his first courtroom appearance in eight months, David Jungerman played the “woe is me” card as hard as he could today, unleashing a desperate attempt to get out of jail until his first-degree murder case goes to trial.
I’m 81 and can’t get the medical care I need in jail; all my assets have been frozen and I don’t have access to any money; the jail is crowded and it’s hard to have one-on-one conversations with my attorney. But more than anything else...The media has convicted me of a crime I didn’t commit; I’m innocent!
Those words are paraphrased. Here are the exact words he used in court today to describe what he views as the Kansas City Police Department’s and Jackson County Prosecutor Office’s obsession with seeing him convicted:
“These people are evil. They lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they’re trying to convict an innocent man…They just want to nail it all on me.”
But Judge John M. Torrence of Jackson County Circuit Court wasn’t hearing any of it.
Prosecutors, he said, had established “sufficient concern” that Jungerman presented a threat to the community and should not be given the chance to go free while his case is pending.
“Motion denied,” Torrence said flatly and with finality.
David Jungerman, today
Several people in the courtroom, including a possible witness and the two lead prosecutors in the case, undoubtedly breathed more easily after hearing those words. That’s because, as one of the prosecutors, Dan Nelson, said during the hearing, Jungerman has clearly demonstrated “a propensity for intense personal violence.”
In two separate incidents he shot and wounded a total of four people he has said were trespassing on his business. In another incident, at a recycling center, he fired a warning shot in the direction of a man he accused of stealing iron piping from his business. And, finally, he probably shot and killed Kansas City attorney Thomas Pickert the morning of Oct. 25, 2017, as Pickert stood in the front yard of his Brookside home, talking on his cellphone.
He has been in the Jackson County jail since March 2018, when the incident at the recycling center took place. He was first held on $1 million bond in that case but has been held without bond since being charged in April 2018 with Pickert’s murder.
The murder trial is now scheduled to start Sept. 3.
Prosecutors contend Jungerman killed Pickert because Pickert had won a $5.75 million civil judgment against Jungerman while representing a man who had been shot by Jungerman. In a court filing last December, prosecutors said they believe Jungerman, a multi-millionaire, is obsessed with money and willing to go to “abnormally extensive lengths” to protect it.
Jungerman has admitted to shooting trespassers at his baby-furniture manufacturing plant in northeast Kansas City, but he was never charged with a crime in either of those incidents.
In addition to the murder charge, though, he is facing a gun-related felony charge in the recycling-center incident.
…Outside a courthouse in southwest Missouri, he once told me he believed in “the castle doctrine” — “You come in my house, I’m going to blow your ass away.”
In court yesterday, he used milder language: “Am I a violent person? No. I protect my property, yes.”
**
Jungerman looked about the same yesterday as he did at his last hearing, in November. Before the hearing, he sat beside a Jackson County sheriff’s deputy and fiddled with his hearing aids. His face was a bit red and his features slightly drawn. A couple of times before his case was called, he stood up, apparently thinking his hearing was about to begin.
At one point in the hearing, he shuffled papers as he spoke to the judge. Momentarily losing his place, he muttered, “Son of a gun.”
Dan ross
At another point he seemed to complain about his attorney, Dan Ross, saying Ross’s only progress had been deposing one police officer.
“That’s not correct,” Ross replied. Then, looking at the judge, he said, “I’m not going to respond to my client.”
Before the hearing began, Ross had told Jungerman, “We’ve had some really good depositions this week.”
He told Jungerman he would be giving him 4,000 pages of “discovery” documents and that another 2,000 would be coming later. “I know you’ll read it,” he said.
And now he’s going to have at least six weeks of quiet time, in jail, to pore over the documents.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
If he was smart, he would hustle this thing to trial. What with Torrence on the bench he’ll probably get off with time served. Remember Curtis Mertensmeyer?
What is the status of the baby furniture factory? I presume it’s long been closed.
I don’t know, but knowing him, it’s probably still open. He had an operations manager — a man named Leo Wynne, the guy he was talking to when he “confessed” with his recorder still running — who was very loyal to him. Leo hasn’t shown up at any hearings, however, and I don’t know where he stands with Jungrman at this point. If he’s still with him, the business is probably active.