Criminology - The 1988 Kansas City Explosion

Episode Date: April 11, 2020

Just after Thanksgiving, in 1988, six Kansas City, Missouri firefighters lost their lives while responding to a truck fire at a construction site. What they didn't know was that explosive materials, five times the amount used by Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing, were in containers on the site. The resulting explosion was devastating. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss this devastating event in Kansas City's history. Five people were eventually convicted for setting the fire that caused the massive explosion. But questions have lingered about this case for many years, with some people believing that the five were innocent. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 107 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you doing right now, buddy? I don't have a complaint in the world. I'm doing as good as can be expected. How about you? Yeah, yeah. Same here. Families all good. Everybody's just trying to stay safe, man. Yeah, I just got to hang in there and just wait things out and try and stay healthy and do our parts. Yeah, my wife, who's a teacher and she's at home, but she's having conference calls with the kids and they're trying to do things.

My kids still have some homework, you know, obviously not as much as they would have, but that's where we're at right now. More if we've seen some amazing Patreon support lately, which is great. for us. I don't know if you and I have talked about it. I've talked about it on some of my other podcast, but, you know, nobody's immune to what's going on in the world right now. And that includes advertisers who, like everyone else, I think, have, you know, they've pulled back because of the economic impact that this crisis has had on the world. So that's tough for people like you and I who make our living podcasting. But we've had some amazing fans reach out and support the show. And the reason why it's amazing is because there are so many people in the

world right now going through economic hardships themselves. So it means a lot to you and I always, the Patreon support that we get. But I think right now especially, the fact that people are willing to help support us and get us through, you know, this tough time. It's amazing. You know, there's another word besides amazing, but the fact people are willing to help support the show. And in return, we want to keep doing these episodes and putting them out there as a distraction from, from everything that's going on. So for anyone out there that is waiting for a new episode of criminology to just pass an hour away to get their mind off things, we'll be here for you. So our new Patreon supporters for this week, we had Katie Marshall.

Leslie Jane, Heather Skaggs, Joel Panion, Olivia Raimondi, Alyssa Santos, and Alice Albrecht. So very much appreciate it. Yeah, thanks to all of you and thanks to everyone else that's been so supportive. And if anyone does want to support the show on Patreon, they can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. Don't forget about Stitcher Premium. They have some amazing content. Not only can you find all of our episodes older than six months, everything's ad-free, but there's a lot of content from a ton of really good podcasts.

And they have that free 30-day trial. So if you haven't checked that out, give it a try. All right, Morph, let's jump into this episode. This is a case that to me is extremely fascinating. On November 29th, 1988, just four days after Thanksgiving, six Kansas City, Missouri firefighters lost their lives in a horrific chemical explosion after responding to a truck fire at a construction site near U.S. Highway 71 and 87th Street. But this fire that took the lives of these firefighters, it was no accident. It was deliberately set.

Five people were eventually convicted of the fire and sentenced to prison. One was set free in 2017, but there are a ton of questions that surround this case. There are some people who believe all five of these individuals are actually innocent. Kansas City is located on the western edge of Missouri at the convergence of two rivers, the Kansas and Missouri rivers. With the population of almost half a million people, it's the largest city in the state, and it's called the City of Fountains. There's only one city that has more fountains than Kansas City, and that's Rome in Italy.

Kansas City is also known for its legendary barbecue, with over 100 barbecue restaurants. It's here where Walt Disney designs his famous cartoon character, Mickey Mouse, after his family moved to Kansas City when he was nine years old. While in elementary school, Walt took weekend drawing classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. So, Morph, I think it's important to give a bit of an overview on the history of the Kansas City Fire Department because, let's face it, it's a big city that has always taken protecting its citizens very seriously. As a result, the department evolved over time, and it evolved quite a bit since its inception. The Kansas City Fire Department was organized around 1858 with the

development of volunteer bucket brigades. So to signal a fire, someone would ring the church bell. near 5th and Wyandotte or Maine near 12th Street. About 10 years later in 1868, the city abandoned the bucket brigade system and replaced it with a fully paid fire department. Initial firefighting equipment included a Silsby rotary engine with a hose and two two-wheeled hand hose cards. The first paid Kansas City Fire Chief elected was Colonel Frank Foster, followed by George C. Hale from 1882 to 1902. By the end of 1969, the first ladder company was organized, and it was named McGee Hook and Ladder Number One, in honor of former Mayor E. Milton McGee. Three years later, the fire department

consisted of 36 paid firefighters, three steamers, one hook and ladder, and one chemical engine. By the 1920s, the fire department had grown to 30 stations with 40 companies. In 1928, the first firefighter training school was open, and the department was fully motorized. Today, the Kansas City Fire Department operates from 34 fire stations, which are organized into seven battalions. Around 1,200 uniformed personnel work under the leadership of fire chief Donna Mays. In November 1988, President Ronald Reagan was wrapping up his two-term. presidency and George H. W. Bush was preparing to step into his shoes as the 41st president of the United States. Bon Jovi had a number one hit record with their song Bad Medicine and a scary

looking possessed doll known as Chucky was terrifying people in movie theaters across the country. The residents of Kansas City had just celebrated Thanksgiving with their families. They had no idea that a tragic and catastrophic event was about to unfold in their city. At 3.40 a.m. on Tuesday, November 29, 1988, the Kansas City Fire Department received the call from a security guard. This security guard was reporting a fire at the site of a highway construction project in the area of Bruce R. Watkins Drive. This was near the intersection of 87th Street and U.S. Highway 71. Some of the following descriptions and details come from the transcript of the called a 911. The caller, Robert Riggs, first stated there was a small pickup truck on fire.

In the background, the dispatcher could hear a woman saying the explosives are on fire. The woman was later identified as another security guard named Deborah Riggs, who was Robert Riggs's sister. Robert Riggs went on to tell dispatch, there's a fire on both sides of the highway. The dispatcher asked him, what's burning? And Riggs replied, uh, there may be some. There may be some. There's some explosives up on a hill that I also see now as burning. The dispatcher directed Pumper 41 to respond to the fire and said, Pumper 41, use caution on your call. There's information there may be explosives.

It's in a construction area. So Pumper 41 arrived at the scene at 3.46 a.m. But found two separate fires burning. The crew radio dispatch at 3.4. saying, if you can get 30, tell them there's a trailer on fire up there, stay away from it. There's supposed to be explosives involved in this. At 352 a.m., Pumper 30 arrived on scene at the second fire. And five minutes later, Pumper 41 requested a battalion chief be sent urgently to the scene.

There was a huge amount of confusion at the site as to whether any of the fires involved explosives or not. Both units were advised that there were explosives on the scene, and both acknowledged that fact. But the firefighters hadn't been told specifically that the trailer was a magazine, which stores explosives. Nor were they told what explosives might be on the site. The firefighters gave no indication they had seen any signs posted anywhere, or that the trailer was a magazine. In their audio exchanges, these firefighters didn't seem overly alarmed. Two of the firefighters, both captains, had previous hazmat training, and had they known what was being stored in this magazine, they probably would have been alarmed. It turns out there were thousands of pounds of highly combustible, endangious ammonium nitrate, and fuel oil.

After Pumper 41 put out the pickup truck fire, it proceeded to the other fire to aid Pumper 21. At 4.02 a.m. There was a truck, a trailer, and a compartment. press or fire. Pumper 41 also requested that a four-wheel drive squad be sent. There was no indication that the firefighters suspected any explosives were involved in the fires that they were attempting to extinguish. As it turned out, the trailer that was on fire was actually an explosives magazine. Two minutes later at 404 a.m., Pumper 41 called Battalion Chief 107 Marion German, who who was en route to the scene. The firefighter told German,

apparently this thing's already blowed up, Chief. He's got magnesium or something burning up here. At 408 a.m., 22 minutes after Pumper 41 arrived at the scene, and approximately 16 minutes after Pumper 30 arrived, a catastrophic explosion occurred when the magazine exploded, instantly killing all six firefighters at the scene. German and his driver, who had just arrived there and stopped about a quarter mile away, received minor injuries when their windshield was blown in.

Following the explosion, German ordered firefighters to withdraw from the area and set up a command post at a safe distance away from the scene. About 40 minutes later, a second explosion occurred, followed by several minor ones. The double explosion shattered windows over a two-mile area and through DeBrebrose. over two square miles. It was said that the explosions could be heard 50 miles away. Both explosions left massive craters where the two magazines had stood. The first crater was approximately 80 feet in diameter and 8 feet deep, connected to a smaller

crater 20 feet in diameter and 6 feet deep. The second crater was approximately 100 feet in diameter and 8 feet deep. The scene resembled what might be seen after an explosion of some type of large military ordinance. You've heard us mention magazine a few times in this episode so far, and what that is, it's the name of a storage facility for explosives. The Kansas City Fire Department reported that the first explosion involved a trailer or a magazine with a split load. One end had approximately 3,500 pounds of ammonium nitrate with a mixture of fuel. with a mixture of fuel oil. The rest of the load was approximately 17,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate

with fuel oil mixed in that also included 5% aluminum pellets. The second explosion was a trailer or magazine that was loaded with about 1,030 pound containers of ammonium nitrate fuel oil mixture with 5% aluminum pellets. Ammonium nitrate is a colorless crystalline salt used in a number of explosives and has fertilizer. The material was the same explosive used by Timothy McVeigh in 1995 at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Only the Kansas City amount was five times as large, according to the Kansas City Star.

Pumper 30 was damaged beyond recognition and appeared to be a mess of twisted, shredded, and melted steel. Pumper 41 received extensive damage as well, but it could still be identified as as a fire truck. The six deceased firefighters were as follows. Fifty-seven-year-old Captain Gerald C. Halloran. He was the senior captain in the fire department and had worked for the fire department since December of 1950. He had been talking about retiring at the end of 1988. He was described as very safety conscious, particularly when it came to his men. And people liked They thought he was a good guy to work for.

Gerald was married with three children and had six grandchildren. Captain James H. Kilventon Jr. was 54 years old. He was in charge of the three-man crew from Fire Station 41 that was the first to reach the scene. He had been a firefighter since 1960 and was promoted to captain in 1977. He had worked at Fire Station 41 for five years. Luther Hurd was 31 years old. And normally worked at Station 23, but he was filling in at Station 30 for another firefighter named Ernest Jackson. Heard taught Red Cross CPR classes and often helped man fire department boost at public events.

He had been with the department for 10 years. He was a former high school track star who left behind a wife and three children. 32-year-old Michael Oldham was the son of a retired Kansas City Fire Department captain, Charles Oldham, and he had been a firefighter since 1976. A few days before the explosion, Michael had been called out to a gas explosion at a home in Hickman Hills that killed a two-year-old boy. Michael was married and had two children. Thomas Frye was 41 years old and had been with the fire department since 1973. He loved to help people, and even when he was off duty. This was the type of guy who would stop any kind of trouble.

Thomas was divorced with one shot. 42-year-old Robert D. McCarnan was a fire apparatus operator who joined the department in 1968. He was married with two children. These six firefighters were mourned by thousands of people at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City on Saturday, December 3, 1988. Firefighters from across the country and Canada. attended the ceremony to pay their respects to their fallen comrades. As the service began, all the uniformed firefighters wearing black stripes across their badges marched onto the football field.

Two pumpers outside the stadium entrance were draped in black, representing the engine companies of the dead firefighters. Near the pumpers were six bright yellow helmets, resting on six pairs of boots. There were 10,000 Kansas City residents and family members in attendance. Then Kansas City Mayor Richard Berkeley vowed to do, quote, Everything in Our Power to prevent things like this from ever happening again. There were two investigations into the explosions,

a homicide investigation by the Kansas City Police Department, and one by the ATF, or alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Each party had different theories on the case. The Kansas City Police Department thought local hoods, or petty fees, aimed to steal items from the site, and set fire to the pickup truck as a distraction. The ATF focused on possible union involvement. Another theory was that someone set fire to the pickup truck as an insurance scam, and the fire got out of hand. This theory was cast aside in 1988, but it would come into play years later.

One thing that was clear between both investigating parties was that no one had actually intended for such a powerful explosion to occur, nor to kill the firefighters. In March 1989, a grand jury was called to investigate the explosion. Six months later, investigators charged 18-year-old Brian Shepard with six counts of felony murder. Shepard, who was only 17 when the explosion occurred, was not charged with arson because the trailers where the fire was set were not considered to be living quarters. Police record showed that a witness reported seeing Shepard and another man, an unidentified 19-year-old, run into the 19-year-old's home shortly after the explosion. The witness told police that both men hurriedly jumped into bed. The 19-year-old was not charged. And then another witness claimed that she saw a truck owned by the 19-year-old drive past her at a high rate of speed, not too low.

long after the explosion. The woman said the young man came home late that night and she felt he may have been involved. Police also stated that an anonymous caller said Shepard admitted to an aunt, that he had been involved in the explosion. A couple of inmates who had been in jail with Shepard said they heard him say he had gone to the construction site with two other people. Their intention was to steal explosives and that one of the three men took off running when he saw car lights approaching. Shepard allegedly told the witnesses that he started the fire to create a diversion, and then he and the other man ran north from the site. Shepard also admitted to stealing items from the construction site, according to the accounts. Shepard's defense attorney disproved the witness statements, and there was no physical evidence tying Brian Shepard to the explosion.

Charges were dropped, and he was released. Seven years later, in June 1996, Brian Shepard, who by that point was 25 years old, was once again arrested for the 1988 explosion. Also arrested were two of his uncles, 46-year-old George Frank Shepard, and 42-year-old Earl D. Shepherd. Also arrested was Frank's girlfriend, 42-year-old D. Edwards, and Brian's friend, Richard Brown, who was 26 years old. The five were charged with using fire to destroy property in interstate commerce, resulting in death. If convicted, they faced maximum life sentences without parole and up to $250,000 in fines. But all five defendants provided alibis for the night of November 29, 1988, and each of them asked if they

could take a polygraph test. Three of them were eventually tested, and all three passed. After pressure from the government, two of the defendants told stories implicating some the others, but they later recanted. And all five defendants turned down a five-year plea deal offered by the government, and they all pleaded not guilty. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do but had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Trial took place in federal court and started in late January 1997. The federal government felt that they had a strong case against the five defendants, despite having no physical evidence such as DNA or fingerprints, tying them to the crimes. They also had no eyewitnesses to the crime itself,

and zero confessions from the crime. five. In fact, all five maintained their innocence and refused to testify against one another. The prosecution alleged that the five set fire to a trailer, not in an effort to commit murder, but to cover up their crime and as a diversion for the two security guards on site. According to the prosecution, the five hung around the site for a while and then went across the highway to set another fire in a pickup truck that was owned by Debbie Riggs, one of the security guards. A few minutes later, the double explosion occurred and killed the firefighters. Assistant U.S. attorney Paul Becker called 59 government witnesses, some credible,

others who provided questionable details. The trial lasted only a few short weeks. And then after deliberating for nearly two days, the jury found all five guilty. In July 1997, the defendants were sentenced to life in prison, with the jury. without the possibility of parole. After sentencing defendant Darlene Edwards turned to the victim's families. She was sobbing and she said, quote, I'm very sorry you lost loved ones. But history does repeat itself and it's repeating itself now because my family is losing me. I hope someday the guilty people do come forward and that it's not too late.

God bless you all. Tanilla Sheehan, the court deputy at the time, later said some of the jurors thought Darlene was innocent and they struggled to find her guilty. Tanilla, who had worked for the court for 30 years at that time, said the trial was the worst experience in her whole career working in the courthouse. The five defendants appealed their sentences several times over the next few years, but all were rejected by a federal appeals court. but questions lingered about the deadly 1988 explosion.

Why would petty thieves need to create a diversion when they weren't covering up a bigger crime like murder? How did they ignite a trailer full of ammonium nitrate fuel oil mixture with no arson experience? How did the five defendants come together at 3 a.m. and get to the construction site? These were just some of the unanswered questions. And it was these questions, Morph, that had some wondering if the five were innocent. The Kansas City Star did a series of articles on the explosion and the trial in 2007, a man named Howard Ed Massey II, who in 1988 worked at the highway construction site where the explosion occurred, told the star he knew who set the fires and that it wasn't any of the five convicted. Massey said he told ATF agents in 2006 that he saw a state. security guard running from a burning truck on the night of the explosion.

Massey said he saw security guard Donna Costanza running from a burning truck. And that was after an encounter he had with Donna's roommate Debbie Riggs, one of the security guards working at the blast site on the morning of the explosion. Massey said Debbie offered him money to blow up her pickup truck to collect the insurance money. Federal prosecutors informed the defense attorneys of the five defendants about Massey's claims. One defense attorney said she would use the information to try and free the defendants because it certainly raised many questions. Reporter Mike McGraw began digging into this case in 2006, and since then, he studied the 4,000-page trial transcript and interviewed witnesses and all five defendants. In June 2008, Mike McGrath reported for the Kansas City Star that another witness named Antonia Garcia came forward implicating Donna Costanza and Debbie Riggs.

Garcia said Debbie admitted to her and other people that she was involved in deadly explosion. She also said Debbie was, quote, all wigged out, all disturbed that the fireman got killed. Garcia backed Massey's claims and said that Debbie and Donna started the arson fires, to get rid of Debbie's pickup truck and collect insurance money. Garcia said she told her story in 1988 to a retired FBI agent, but nothing came from it. In the time since Antonia Garcia shared this information, more information has come out about the trial itself. Of the more than 50 witnesses who testified against defied defendants,

24 were felons with 76 convictions between them, and 14 were currently serving. jail time. Some of the crimes they were involved in included drug sales, manslaughter, sexual assault, and even explosives violations. One witness alone had 17 felony convictions. Another witness later told Mike McGraw that, quote, she is confident. The defendants were guilty, partly because she's a Pisces and therefore psychic. Allegations of misconduct by investigators also came out trial. Some witnesses came forward saying they were pressured to lie and refused, and then received severe retribution from law enforcement. Others said they provided evidence that potentially cleared

some of the defendants, but they were ignored. Some witnesses were given incentives to testify against the five defendants, including a $50,000 reward and lesser prison sentences. There were many conflicts in witness testimony during the trial, and in the end, the witnesses placed each defendant in as many as seven different places at the same time, according to McGraw. Darlene Edwards, one of the five defendants, has a daughter named Becky, who at the time of the trial was 11 years old. She was a key witness in the case. But Becky later said she was pressured to lie about overhearing Darlene conversing with the

other defendants about planning a theft at the construction site. Through Mike McGraw's investigation, he also. interviewed investigators and some of the surviving firefighters at the scene. A couple of them told him the story, the security guards. Robert Riggs and Debbie Riggs told, didn't add up. McGraw wrote that, quote, both of them claimed they weren't even at the construction site when the fires were set, despite the trouble the defendants allegedly went to in an effort to create a diversion. Robert and Debbie said they had left the scene to search for a prowler who was never caught.

In 2009, an old police report surfaced for the first time. It raised new questions about Riggs' claim. Police interviewed a woman after the explosion, but defense attorneys had no knowledge of the interview. Had they known about it, her interview could have been used in court to contradict Robert and Debbie Rigg's statements about where they were right before the fires were started. The police report showed that Robert and Debbie knew their pickup truck had been burned before they left the site in search of the mystery prowler, not after they returned, as they had originally claimed. Another witness, John F. White Jr., who testified for the prosecution, contacted Mike McGraw. White testified that defendant Earl Shepard had admitted to him that he was involved in the crime while they were both in the St. Clair County Jail. But White told McGraw, it was all a lot that he told to get a break on a federal sentence in a different case.

Other witnesses told McGraw they were worried about perjury charges by the government if they recanted what they had said at trial. However, something did happen that gave some hope to the five convicted. Mike McGraw wrote a series of articles for the Kansas City Star as part of his investigation in the exclusion. that included these witnesses' claims. And apparently, those articles must have upset someone because in 2008, investigators for the U.S. Department of Justice looked into those claims over a two-year period. In July 2011, the government released a two-page summary of its findings,

instead of releasing an unredacted version of the 20-page report on which the summary was based. The summary stated their investigators in the original explosion, investigation acted properly and there was no credible evidence to support the witness's coercion claims. What was interesting about these findings was the final section of the summary. It reported that investigators had found several newly developed pieces of information, not previously known to the prosecution, suggesting other persons may have been involved in the arsons. But it also stated that, the five people convicted were guilty, meaning the five defendants, plus the two unknown people

had worked together. Those two people were never named or charged in the explosion, and the government refuses to discuss the matter. It turns out there was light at the end of the tunnel for one of the five convicted. In the spring of 2013, the Midwest Innocence Project asked defense attorney Cindy Short to represent Brian Shepard if the court granted him a new sentence in proceeding. Brian Shepard was the youngest of the five convicted, and he was only 17 years old and a minor at the time of the explosion. Because of his age, at the time of the crime, Shepard was affected by a 2012 decision, Miller v. Alabama. That case involves two companion cases. In each case, a 14-year-old was convicted of murder and sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without parole.

Both defendants in those cases argued that a life sentence without parole for a juvenile violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. And the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The decision was based on recent brain science that confirmed that the brains of juveniles have what the court called, quote, diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change, meaning they cannot always make reasonable decisions and juveniles can be misled by older co-defendants. If a 17-year-old was sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines like Brian Shepard was, they should get a chance to argue this at a resentencing hearing. In 2015, Brian Shepard won the right to a resentencing hearing. But at the time, the state of Louisiana was in court arguing that Miller v. Alabama should apply only to future cases.

Therefore, Shepard's hearing was on hold until that case was settled in January 2016. In the case of Montgomery v. Louisiana, the decision held that, quote, prisoners must be given the opportunity to show their crimes did not reflect irreparable corruption. And if it didn't, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored. To prepare for the resentencing hearing, Shepard's attorney Cindy Short, asked for the full 20-page, unredacted copy of the U.S. Department of Justice's 2011 report. Cindy argued that the findings could strengthen Shepard's argument for a shorter sentence. But Cindy was denied her request for the report.

Finally in January 2016, 45-year-old Brian Shepard was granted a resentencing hearing after serving nearly 20 years in prison for a crime that he maintains he didn't commit. Cindy Short filed a 69-page memorandum that laid out the details of Shepard's chaotic and turbulent childhood. It describes Shepard as a troubled, once-illiterate thrill-seeker, raised by alcoholic parents, who redeemed himself during his time in federal prison. It also pointed out that Shepard had an alibi when the explosion occurred, and he passed a polygraph test. The resentencing hearing took place in late February 2016, and by early March, a federal judge ruled that Brian Shepard should have his sentence reduced to 20 years in prison, because he had already

served 20 years at that point. There was a good chance he would be released from prison. A few months later in September 2016, Cindy Short asked a federal judge to immediately release her client from prison. Two months later, U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaiton Jr. denied her request. He denied the request on several grounds, one being that Brian Shepard signed a waiver, giving up his right to a jury sentencing. But, Cindy Short refused to give up, believing 100% in her client's innocence. In January 2017, Brian Shepard was finally released from prison, leaving his four co-defendants still sitting in prison to this day. Upon his release, Brian told the press, quote,

they do not have the right people in prison. The real people are still out there running around, living their lives like it never happened. Brian's release didn't sit right, with many of the victims families. But James Kilventon, son of Captain James Kilvinton, who lost his life in the explosion, always believed that the government got the wrong people for the crime. He also told reporters that he knew his father well, and his father would have also questioned it. In 2018, Brian Shepard was fighting for the heavily redacted 2011 Department of Justice Review of the case to be made public, something that hasn't happened yet. That same year, filmmaker Joe O'Connor, who was working on a film about the case,

said new evidence points to a second separate fire in the pickup truck of one of the two security guards there that morning. O'Connor told Kansas City's KMBC that there was combustible material on the truck seat with different burn patterns than what was found in the rest of the truck. He said, quote, so it looks like someone tried to get rid of these materials in a separate fire event and disguised them in the pickup truck fire remains. O'Connor also said it makes no sense for the five convicted defendants to have set a second separate fire. After the horrific 1988 explosion that took the lives of the six beloved firefighters, a couple of memorials were erected in their honor. At the site where the blast occurred, stands six stone crosses with the last names of each firefighter engraved on each cross. In 1991, a fountain was erected at Pennsylvania Avenue in West 31st Street.

It features two bronze figures surrounded by 48 streams of water, falling into an 80-foot-wide basin. Directly to the north of the fountain sits a large bronze sculpture of a firefighter, with his head bowed. Behind that sculpture is a curved stone wall with bronze plaques that list the names of the fallen firefighters. But this is not a monument meant for just the six fallen firefighters. It is dedicated to all Kansas City firefighters who have lost their lives. Over the years, many of the victim's families filed lawsuits against the construction

company and explosives manufacture after the deaths of the firefighters. Most were settled with family members receiving monetary settlements. In the aftermath of the deadly explosion, the Kansas City Hazardous Materials team was placed into service on September 24, 1989. According to Robert Burke of Firehouse Magazine, Station 27 recently developed a hazmat logo that appears on Pumper 27 in Hazmat 71. That logo carries the date of the explosion and P30 and P41 on the helmet shield and P27 and HM71 on axes located on either side of the helmet. Kansas City enacted a sales tax to support a hazardous materials team to aid firefighters at emergencies. Additionally, the city committed to a labeling program for structures which paved the way for the diamond. shaped placards on buildings and containers that indicate hazardous materials are being used or

stored inside. Today, three of the five people convicted for the explosion and remain in prison. Earl Shepard died in prison in 2009. He maintained his innocence until the day he died. Brian Shepard is enjoying his freedom and now spends time with his family, which includes a daughter and grandchild. He's still fighting to clear the names of his co-defendants. Darlene Edwards, Robert Brown, and his uncles, Earl and Frank Shepard. As tragic as the deaths of these hero firefighters were, it would also be tragic if three innocent people remain in prison for the rest of their lives for a crime that they didn't commit. Well, and more if I would add on top of that, tragic, to not have all five cleared if they really

didn't do it. I get it, Brian Shepard's out, he has his freedom, but he's still a convicted felon. and, you know, his uncle Earl who has died, died a convicted felon. And to me, if these five people didn't do this, that's tragic. Aside from the three that are still sitting there in prison. But it's one of those cases that, you know, there are just a lot of unanswered questions for me. And I think anytime you have one of these trials where you've got a bunch of witnesses, right, that the state parades up on the stand. And it turns out that a lot of the witnesses have questionable backgrounds. They've made deals with the prosecution.

I'm always a little bit leery, man. And I think that has really grown for me over time with all of these cases that, you know, have been uncovered to be wrongful convictions. I'm seriously very leery of some of these. And this was a case where there was really no physical evidence linking any of the defendants to the crime. Well, and on top of that, there was testimony from some people that actually pointed the finger at a couple of other people. I don't know.

We didn't sit on the jury, right? A jury heard all the evidence. Now, the jury can only go by what they hear or see, the evidence that is produced. reduced at trial, that's all they can do and then make the best decision they can. What if the evidence is not true or the testimony is not true? That's not the jury's fault, right? If it turns out legitimately that people gave testimony that wasn't real, they lied in order to get money, in order to get reduced sentences, that's a tragedy if that happened. Yeah, and I think it was very powerful that three of these five were given lie detector test and passed,

not that it's admissible in court, but investigators use that a lot of times just to sort of gauge interest in persons of interest to have three of them given and passed lie detector test is pretty strong, not to mention all of them had alibis for that night. So you could really see where this almost could have gone the other way and they wouldn't have been convicted. And I think the other thing that I struggle with in this case is the reason behind the need to set these fire, right? So according to the prosecution, the five are there to steal something from the construction site. Explosives, materials, whatever it is. Okay. Can you not just steal it and then run off? Do you really need to set this diversion to lure away the security guards who may or may not have even been on the construction site at the time. I'm just, I'm struggling with a lot of the components of this case.

I really am. And another thing that sort of comes to mind after what you just said is that they were given an opportunity to plead guilty and receive a five-year sentence. So even if they had done this and it was an accident, they didn't mean to kill any of these firefighters, if they had done that and were facing life in prison without parole or five years, you would think that some of them would have taken that opportunity, but all five defendants said no, we're innocent, we're not taking that.

And instead, some of them are still in prison for that. Yeah, I think you can make a couple of different things out of that. You can make the argument that they all were innocent, and they weren't willing to do any more jail time. they thought they were going to be exonerated or found not guilty by a jury, not exonerated, but not guilty. Or you can say they still thought they were guilty,

but they still thought they could beat it. It can go a couple of different ways. Most people don't turn down that type of plea deal, especially if they're guilty. I'll say that. There's a lot of innocent people more if we know it. We covered it. that don't turn down that type of plea deal because they don't want to take the chance that a jury is going to convict them and they're going to spend the rest of their life and die in prison.

They don't want to roll the dice on that. I think what's possible here and what's sad is that we may never know the truth about what really happened and who was involved unless something suddenly comes to light or somebody comes forward with some kind of powerful information. And that's the part that's tough, right? I mean, we don't have a crystal ball, can't look in it and see, okay, here's exactly what happened. I wish I did because there's a lot of things I'd really love to know the truth about, not just true crime, but other things that have happened as well. And I think that's why some people have a hard time with cases like this, right, when there is uncertainty. But there's a lot of people, especially the online sluice that we always talk about, that love these type of cases because of the mystery. There's a lot of things to dig into here.

Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at Trueprimdiva.com for writing and research assistants in this episode. If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute. Go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends about criminology. That word of mouth goes a long way towards helping us. other people find the podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle Criminology Pod. We're also on Facebook.

Just search for Criminology Podcast. You can also find our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion fans. So that's it. That's it for the case of the Kansas City explosion. It's a sad but interesting case. More if I'll wrap it up by saying that. Six people lost their lives. all of their family members were affected.

And then, you know, you talk about the five people that were convicted. Okay. If they did it, they should have been. But if they didn't, then, you know, that's a second tragedy to this case. And hopefully if they didn't do it, the people that really did one day or brought to justice. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's always the hope, right?

But that's it. For this week, Morp and I will be back next Saturday night within all. new episode of criminology. So until then, this is Mike. And Morf. And we'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.