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

A little over two years ago I dubbed Kylr Yust and David Jungerman as “co-Public Enemies No. 1.”

A Cass County jury and judge took care of Yust in June 2021, recommending and sentencing the tattooed hooligan to 45 years in prison for the killings of Jessica Runions and Kara Kopetsky.

Up next, nearly five years after KC lawyer Thomas Pickert was gunned down in the front yard of his Brookside home, is Jungerman.

Jungerman’s long-delayed trial in Jackson County Circuit Court is scheduled to begin Sept. 12. Presiding will be Judge John Torrence, who has nudged this case along carefully and perseveringly. I doubt that Torrence will tolerate any more delays.

The odds are good that Jungerman will be convicted, but I do have some concerns. One is that one of the two lead prosecutors, Dan Nelson, left the Prosecutor’s Office in February to take a job with a private law firm. I expect the lead prosecutor to be Lauren Whiston, a top assistant to Jean Peters Baker. From what I’ve seen, Whiston is very good, but she’s carrying a big load and will be under tremendous pressure.

Another concern is that I don’t have much confidence in the homicide detectives at KCPD. The division has a low murder-solution rate, and, overall, the department has been poorly managed under the last two chiefs — Rick Smith and Darryl Forte.

On the other hand, it would take a major screw-up by either the police or the Prosecutor’s Office for Jungerman to escape conviction. He stupidly admitted to the killing on tape, having failed to turn off the recording device after taping a court proceeding, and he was the only person in the world to have a strong motive to kill Pickert: In 2017, Pickert won a $5.75 million civil judgment against Jungerman while representing a trespasser whom Jungerman shot in 2012.

Jungerman is a millionaire many times over, but the prospect of handing over $5.75 million was too much for him to stomach. So, on the mornng of Oct. 25, 2017, he apparently sat in his van across the street from Pickert’s house and shot Pickert with a rifle after Pickert had walked his two young sons to school and was standing in his front yard, talking on his cellphone.

Jungerman, 84, has been in the Jackson County jail since March 2018. He’s got some health problems, and he said in a court filing that he nearly died of Covid-19 a year or two ago.

I’m glad he survived because, even though this trial is going to be very difficult for his widow, Dr. Emily Riegel, their two sons and other family members, this case needs to go to trial, and justice cries out for Jungerman to be convicted.

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I met Jungerman one time. It was at a court hearing in January 2018 in Nevada, MO, two months before he was arrested in Kansas City. At the time, he was facing an attempted break-in charge in Vernon County.

Just by sheer coincidence he got on the elevator I was on as we headed up to a second-floor courtroom. I introduced myself in the elevator, and we talked for a few minutes before the hearing began, and we talked again after the hearing.

I don’t remember whether it was before or after the hearing, but at some point, while we were in the courthouse, I looked straight at him and said, “Did you kill him?”

He hesitated slightly and 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 he was smart, he would have stopped after the word “questions,” but he’s not smart; he just thinks he is.

What he is is an extremely reckless and violent individual who apparently has no real concern for anything other than his wealth, which consists partly of the value of land he owns in southwest Missouri.

Next month, with any luck, the long-running saga of David Jungerman will wind down, with a jury finding him guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of a lawyer who did a good job for a client and paid for it with his life.