As regular readers know, I’ve been closely following two big murder cases — David Jungerman in Jackson County and Kylr Yust in Cass County.
Progress in both cases has slowed because of Covid-19 factors, but the Yust case has become particularly problematic in the last six weeks.
It’s looking now like the Cass County Prosecutor’s office, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, the Belton Police Department and the Kansas City Police Department have made combined mistakes that may result in Yust going free before there’s a trial.
Another possibility is that he could be tried and convicted, with the conviction being overturned by an appeals court later.
The least likely scenario is the one I envisioned before the mistakes began surfacing: a straightforward conviction, with Yust being sent to prison for the rest of his life.
The troubling news has dripped out in three Kansas City Star stories. Here are the dates of those stories and the gist of the problems they exposed…
Kylr Yust
May 29: The Star reported that when police were cleaning out an old desk at the Belton Police Department they found a VHS tape of a suspect who confessed to multiple people that he killed Kara Kopetsky, one of the women, along with Jessica Runions, Yust is accused of murdering. (Kopetsky was killed in 2007, so the tape was at least 10 years old.)
After reading that story I wasn’t too concerned for two reasons: First, it is not unusual for goofballs to confess to high-profile murders they didn’t commit, and, second, Yust told at least four people that he had choked Kopetsky to death.
July 9: One of Yust’s attorneys released a statement saying a Kansas City police officer had a sexual relationship with a witness in the case and conducted his own ad hoc and unauthorized investigation before being told to stop.
On top of the tape found in the desk, this was troubling. Again, however, it didn’t worry me too much because, I reasoned, it could knock out just one witness, and surely there were plenty of others to override this investigative embarrassment.
July 14: Yesterday, The Star’s Katie Moore reported that Yust’s attorneys had filed a motion alleging Cass County jail officials had recorded phone calls between Yust and his attorneys — calls that fell under the protection of attorney-client privilege and were thus draped in legal confidentiality. As Sharon Turlington, one of Yust’s attorneys, said in the motion, “Confidential communication is the basis of preparing an effective defense in a criminal case.”
This mistake makes the two reported earlier pale by comparison and could well sound the death knell of the case against a man who is almost surely an odious and vicious killer.
Prosecutor Ben Butler
Recording the phone calls reverberates beyond what jail officials, under the direction of the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, might have done. A big question is: Were jailers recording at the direction of Cass County Prosecutor Ben Butler? At this point, we don’t know. A few weeks ago, the judge in the Yust case appointed a “special master,” a retired judge, to try to sort out the web of confusion about the phone calls. At some point, the special master will probably submit a report on his findings, and we may find out if Butler was the instigator.
…Whatever the special master concludes, this is terrible news for everyone interested in seeing justice served in the murders of Kara and Jessica.
As Katie Moore reported in The Star, several significant Kansas criminal cases were thrown out after an investigation found federal prosecutors had listened to recordings of confidential phone calls and meetings between defense attorneys and their clients at a private prison in Leavenworth.
A special master who investigated that debacle said he had never been involved in a case with such broad accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. The scandal led to the firing of one prosecutor and the retirement of another.
And now, here we are with much the same situation in the Yust case. In June, after I wrote about the tape found in the desk at the Belton Police Department, regular reader Steve Porter, a former reporter in Cass County, submitted a comment that could prove to be prescient. Steve wrote…
“Belton Police may not be the weak point in the prosecution of Yust. Cass County Prosecutor Ben Butler may not be up to the job, and there’s no talent behind him.”
I sincerely hope Butler, the Belton Police Department, KCPD and the Cass County Sheriff’s Office have not collectively blown the case. But that appears to be a distinct possibility.
I know I’m stating the obvious here, but unqualified prosecutors can lead to tragic consequences, especially if Yust goes free and kills another innocent person.
A Republican, Butler was first elected in 2014, as the Republican Party was in rapid ascendancy in Missouri, culminating in 2016 with Trump beating Clinton by more than 500,000 votes in the Show Me state.
Butler defeated Democrat Teresa Hensley, who had a reputation as a very strong prosecutor and served in that post more nearly 10 years.
Spot on, Mike. I’m trying to think of even one county in the metro area with a decent prosecutor and coming up blank. Certainly Jackson, Wyandotte and Johnson County, Ks are out of the running (although the primary in WYCO does offer some hope). But that raises the question in my mind as to whether the legal occupation (I hesitate to call it a profession) doesn’t need radical reform.
Two things Fitz. First your terminology: Prosecutors or DA’s are ‘Criminal Justice’ entities. Police and sheriffs’ departments are law enforcement agencies. Second, it is common that phone calls are randomly monitored in jail. Inmates are warned that calls may be monitored and the practice has been upheld in court. Wyandotte County Sheriff’s detectives routinely spend hours listening for escape talk, plans for suicide or assault, etc. However, once it is determined that the callee is an attorney, monitoring ends.
Thanks for the clarification, Chuck. I’ll get it right in the future. Sounds like the monitoring of calls is a tricky business. In this case, though, it sounds like the jailers failed to stop monitoring attorney-client calls. That’s a problem.
No, we don’t need a guy with the first name of Kylr running loose on the streets, particularly since it would appear that he’s already lived up to his name twice. The prosecutor and all of the law enforcement agencies involved in this case need to get their act together real fast!
I love your interpretation of the pronunciation, Rick…