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In a tensely still
courtroom, five Kansas Citians were found guilty Wednesday of causing
a 1988 explosion that killed six firefighters. The jury will return
today to decide whether the defendants should spend the rest of their
lives in prison.
Tears flowed
throughout the jammed courtroom. Relatives of the firefighters wept
and hugged, as if the verdict provided a cathartic moment in the
tumultuous eight-year history of the case, which began with two
thunderous blasts that shook houses and shattered windows for miles.
"It's about
time," said Janice Oldham Offill, sister of firefighter Michael
Oldham, who was among those killed. "It puts a closure on the
case, but it doesn't put a closure on our lives, because Michael is
still gone."
Relatives of the
defendants stared straight ahead and then broke down in sobs.
After U.S.
District Judge Joseph E. Stevens Jr. read the verdict, the audience
was required to stay in the courtroom until the jury was out of the
building. One defendant's brother was removed from the courtroom
after arguing with security officers.
The defendants -
Frank Sheppard, Skip Sheppard, Darlene Edwards, Bryan Sheppard and
Richard Brown - have maintained their innocence, saying they were not
at the south Kansas City construction site on the morning of Nov. 29, 1988.
"I'm still
innocent," Edwards yelled at photographers after the verdict.
"It was
wrong. It was totally wrong," Frank Sheppard said as he was
escorted out of the courthouse. "We didn't do this."
But the jury never
heard the defendants' versions, because none of them testified.
What the jury did
hear was four weeks of testimony from friends and acquaintances of
the defendants. About 50 of those persons said one or two of the
defendants admitted starting a fire that caused two explosions along
U.S. 71 near 87th Street. A handful of others said they saw the
defendants on the streets either before or after the first blast at
4:08 a.m.
The jury
deliberated for 13 hours over two days. At 4:35 p.m., Judge Stevens
read all five verdict forms to himself and then announced that all
five defendants had been found guilty of one count of arson resulting
in the death of public servants.
"I'm just
overwhelmed with emotion," said Leota Halloran, widow of
firefighter Gerald R. Halloran, who was killed in the blast. She and
many other family members were present for all or nearly all of the
five-week trial.
In addition to
Oldham and Halloran, the firefighters killed were James H. Kilventon,
Luther Eugene Hurd, Robert D. McKarnin and Thomas M. Fry.
The lawyers in the
case mainly declined comment, since it is still pending. Willard
Bunch, Edwards' attorney, said, "We're disappointed, but jury
verdicts are jury verdicts."
The parents and
siblings of the five defendants, nervous during the two days of
deliberations, were devastated. They, too, watched all of the trial,
from the opposite side of the courtroom from the firefighters' families.
"How can they
do this?" asked Naomi Sheppard, mother of Frank and Skip
Sheppard. "This case was nothing but hearsay. I can't believe it."
Virginia Sheppard,
mother of Bryan Sheppard, said: "I don't know how the jury can
live with themselves, putting an innocent man in prison. It's just
not fair."
This morning,
Stevens will hear arguments on whether the fire caused by the
defendants was a "direct or proximate" cause of the
firefighters' deaths.
If Stevens rules
that the fire did cause the deaths, the jury will return to the
courtroom. The lawyers will argue whether the defendants deserve life
without parole or a lesser sentence to be determined by the judge.
If the jury votes
for a lesser sentence or can't agree on a verdict, Stevens will
impose sentences later. But the lawyers said the federal sentencing
guidelines call for a life sentence, so Stevens probably would be
forced to impose a lengthy sentence that would be less than a life
term. From the beginning, prosecutors admitted that they had no
physical evidence and no eyewitnesses to tie anyone to the explosion.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul S. Becker told the jury, "Each
of these defendants, over the last eight years, has been unable to
keep their mouths shut."
Indeed, Becker and
Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel C. Miller produced a parade of
witnesses over four weeks who recounted conversations with the
defendants. Sometimes they were discussions in a bar, sometimes in a
jail cell. Four of the five defendants are in prison.
When the
government had finished, 57 witnesses had implicated one or more
defendants. Only one witness, the daughter of Darlene Edwards, put
all five in the same room at the same time. She said she saw the
five, and two other men, planning to steal from the construction site
a week before the explosions. |
