JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

One of the Kansas City area’s two biggest criminal cases is set to go to trial soon, while the other continues to go nowhere.

Here’s an update on the murder cases of Kylr Yust in Cass County and David Jungerman in Jackson.

Kylr Yust

Yust, 32, has been in custody since October 2017, charged in the strangulation murders of Kara Kopetsky in 2007 and Jessica Runions in 2016. The women’s remains were found in a wooded area south of Belton in April 2017.

Now, though, Yust’s day in court is almost at hand. Jury selection is set to begin a week from tomorrow, March 29, in St. Charles County.

After a jury is chosen there (picking a jury in Cass County was ruled out because of pre-trial publicity), the jurors will come to Harrisonville, with trial scheduled to begin Monday, April 5.

Credit for moving this case along goes to Circuit Judge William B. Collins, who relentlessly plowed through motion after motion as the defense attorneys — a sharp team out of the St. Louis Public Defender’s Office — have jockeyed for delay, a guilty defendant’s best chance for acquittal.

One of the defense’s last-ditch motions was to disqualify Collins on the strength of an anonymous assertion that Kopetsky’s parents, Rhonda and Jim Beckford, had been in contact with Collins. Collins asked the Missouri Supreme Court to assign a senior judge to hear the motion, and the appointed judge overruled it after the Beckfords took the stand and denied ever speaking with Collins.

This promises to be a challenging trial logistically because of Covid-19. Public interest is very high, and I’m sure Collins’ Div. 1 courtroom will be full every day — at least as full as Covid-19 restrictions allow. I expect there to be one or two overflow rooms with video coverage provided.

For court appearances, the defense attorneys have had the heavily tattooed Yust looking like a calm, polite young man, belying what witnesses are expected to characterize as a violent man with an explosive temper. Even in gray and white jail garb, his tattoos have been covered by high-necked T-shirts. For the trial, he will be in civilian clothes, and I expect, again, there will be no trace of tattoos.

David Jungerman

This case seems to be mired in quicksand. Not only is there no trial date, but not a single motion has been filed since Feb. 1.

Jungerman has been in jail since March 8, 2018, when he was arrested for threatening at gunpoint a man whom Jungerman believed had stolen some piping from his business in northeast Kansas City.

He was soon charged with the Oct. 25, 2017, murder of Kansas City lawyer Thomas Pickert, who was gunned down in the front yard of his Brookside home while talking on his cellphone. Pickert had just returned home after walking his two sons to a nearby school.

Jungerman and his family have already lost a civil suit related to the killing. In August, a Jackson County judge approved a confidential settlement brought by Pickert’s wife and parents against the Jungerman Family Irrevocable Trust. Jungerman’s daughter, Angelia Buesing, signed off on the settlement as the trustee of Jungerman’s trust.

Whenever the trial begins, testimony will show Jungerman had it in for Pickert because Pickert had successfully represented a client who sued Jungerman for more than $5 million after Jungerman shot him for prowling on his northeast Kansas City business property.

The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office has a strong circumstantial case, and if prosecutors can prove that Jungerman’s distinctive white van had been moved from Jungerman’s property in Raytown and was in the vicinity of Pickert’s home that fateful morning, Jungerman is probably toast. Jungerman, who thinks he’s the smartest guy in every room — and every cell — told police the van did not move that day.

…My contention all along has been that the prosecutors, like the defense attorneys, are in no rush to bring the case to trial. Jungerman is safely behind bars, and he turned 83 on March 3.

Lead defense attorney Dan Ross has probably been paid well over $200,000, and two or three other defense attorneys are also in on the action. Jungerman, who’s worth has been estimated at more than $30 million, most of it from land he owns in southwest Missouri, is obsessed with his money, and I’m sure the outflow of money bothers him just as much as being in jail.

I think we can assume he’s miserable behind bars, and it’s somewhat comforting to the public at large, and particularly Pickert’s family, to know that with each passing day Jungerman is moving ever closer to his ultimate mark on the horizon.