KCK stand-off suspect identified

Police today identified the man who held them at bay for several hours Thursday before committing suicide as Darrell J. Payne, 33.

Payne, who was wanted on a murder charge, barricaded himself in a relative’s home in northeast Kansas City, Kan., Thursday morning after members of a felony apprehension unit tried to arrest him. Authorities had received a tip that he was seen at the house on Roosevelt Street, just north of Roswell Avenue, the night before.

The stand-off lasted several hours and police tried to negotiate with Payne to surrender. When negotiations failed, police fired tear gas into the house to get him to surrender. Police entered the house about 4:20 p.m. and discovered Payne’s body. He died of an apparent self-inflicted wound.

Payne, who was from Kansas City, Kan., had been charged in Wyandotte County with second-degree murder, domestic battery and criminal possession of a firearm. Payne allegedly shot Santol Lacy, 25, of Kansas City, Kan., during a domestic dispute on June 25 in the 6400 block of Rowland Avenue.
— Robert A. Cronkleton/ The Star See The Star Saturday for more news on the area.

Two injured in Raytown shooting

Raytown police are investigating a shooting Thursday in which two men were injured.

The shooting was reported about 7:20 p.m. in the 5400 block of Ditzler Avenue. Police said a 19-year-old Kansas City man was taken to a hospital.

Meanwhile, officers intercepted a sports utility vehicle, which was taking another shooting victim to the hospital. The second victim was an 18-year-old Raytown man.

No motive for the shooting has been established, police said.

Police have not released further information.
To reach Linda Man, call (816) 234-7809 or e-mail lman@kcstar.com

Lawrence purse snatched

Lawrence police are investigating a purse-snatching near the University of Kansas campus late Tuesday.

The incident occurred while a KU student was walking from Memorial Stadium along 11th Street, between Mississippi and Indiana streets. A man walked up from behind and took her purse, then fled south on foot.

Anyone with information is asked to call the KU Public Safety Office at 1-(785) 864-5900, KU Crime Stoppers 1-(785) 864-8888, Lawrence police 1-(785) 832-7559 or the Lawrence TIPS Hotline 1-(785) 843-TIPS or 1-(785) 843-8477

Desoto Sonic robbed

With white T-shirts over their heads and socks on their hands, two robbers held up a Sonic Restaurant in De Soto late Wednesday.

The incident occurred about 11:40 p.m. at 34425 W. 91st St. The robbers, one armed with a handgun, demanded money from an employee who was preparing to close the business for the evening.

The men stole bank bags containing about $1,400 in cash and then fled in a blue Ford Mustang. Lenexa police stopped a vehicle that matched that description near 79th Street and Interstate 435. Police discovered a third person inside the vehicle and took all three into custody.

OP Quizno's robbed

Fast-food robbery

Overland Park police are searching for the suspect in a fast-food robbery Wednesday night at Quizno’s Restaurant, 12094 W. 135th St.

Witnesses told officers the suspect entered the store about 8:51 p.m., displayed a silver-colored handgun and demanded money. He fled on foot with an undisclosed amount of money. No injuries were reported.

Anyone with information is asked to call Overland Park police at (913) 327-6971 during business hours. After hours, call the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS or (816) 474-8477.

Murder plot alleged

An Overland Park man was ordered Thursday to stand trial for allegedly trying to get another man to kill a woman he is accused of raping last year.

Gregory A. Anderson was charged last year with raping a 35-year-old woman who lived in the same apartment complex where he lived.

On Thursday, another inmate in the Johnson County Jail testified that Anderson approached him about the possibility of killing his accuser.

A judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to try Anderson, 40, on the charges of solicitation to commit first-degree murder or solicitation to commit aggravated intimidation of a witness.

Anderson’s attorney, Dionne Scherff, pleaded not guilty on his behalf. His trial on both the rape and solicitation charges was scheduled for Dec. 12 in Johnson County District Court.

Rape attempt reported in KCK

A woman told police that someone tried to rape her Thursday morning in Matney Park near 42nd Street and Shawnee Drive.

The woman said the incident happened shortly after 9 a.m., said Bob Gunja, the chief park ranger for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan. The park has a walking trail, a shelter house and a child’s playground, Gunja said.

The woman, who is about 30 years old, told police she was walking along a trail when a man in his mid-30s tried to rip off her clothes.

After she began screaming, he fled in an older white pickup truck with Missouri license plates, she told police.

Anyone with information about the reported rape attempt should call the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS (474-8477).

Parkville crash victim identified

The 56-year-old truck driver who died in an accident with a paint truck on Interstate 29 in Atchison County was identified Thursday as Kenneth J. Rich of Parkville.

The fatal accident occurred about 5:35 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol. Rich was driving his semitrailer northbound along I-29 about two miles north of Watson when he rear-ended a Ford flatbed truck that was painting highway lines, according to the highway patrol.

Rich’s truck jackknifed and blocked both lanes of northbound I-29. Rich, who was not wearing a seat belt, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Highway Patrol. The driver of the other truck, Joshua C. Dull, 23, of Quincy, Mo., had minor injuries and was taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released.

Hotel robbery in south KC

A robber held up a south Kansas City hotel Thursday. No injuries were reported.

The robbery at KC South Hotel & Suites in the 5700 block of Longview Road was reported at 2 a.m.

The clerk told police that a man had walked up to the counter with a hotel bill in his hand. When the clerk got to the counter, the man pulled out a gun and demanded money. The clerk handed over some cash, and the robber fled.

Rape attempt suspect sought

Police investigators are seeking help identifying a man suspected in the attempted rape and sodomy of a 9-year-old girl.

According to police, the man was attacking the girl in late June in the 400 block of South Norton when he was interrupted by his girlfriend. Information provided by the girlfriend has not been enough to positively identify the man, who is thought to go by two possible names: Alejandro Cervantes and Salavador Sanchez.

The man, who frequents the Northeast area, is between 33 and 37 years old, is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds. He has tattoos on multiple parts of his body, including his left forearm and his entire right arm past his shoulder.

Anyone with information on his identity or whereabouts should call the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS (474-8477). All calls are confidential.

Gas station threat

A man wearing black pantyhose tried to rob a Kansas City gas station Thursday morning by threatening to burn it down.

A clerk for the BP/Amoco gas station at 8651 Hillcrest Road told police that the man arrived about 4:30 a.m. and demanded money, Capt. Rich Lockhart said. The clerk, who was in a security booth, refused, so the man sprayed a liquid out of a black hose.

“He further stated that if the clerk didn’t give him the money, he would burn down the place,” Lockhart said.

The clerk got down on the floor and called police. The suspect left empty-handed.

Police were unsure what liquid the man had sprayed.

“There was a strong odor of bleach,” Lockhart said.

$15,000 reward paid in Precious Doe case

The FBI has paid a $15,000 reward to the tipster who cracked the Precious Doe murder case, an agency spokesman said Thursday.

The money went to Thurman McIntosh of Muskogee, Okla., who recognized the murdered girl as his step-great-granddaughter.

Police found the 3-year-old girl’s headless body April 28, 2001, in woods near 59th Street and Kensington Avenue. Her identity remained unknown until McIntosh called Kansas City police after seeing a newspaper ad placed by community activist Alonzo Washington.

The tip helped police identify the girl as Erica Green. Jackson County prosecutors have charged her mother, Michelle Johnson, and Michelle’s husband, Harrell Johnson, of Muskogee, in the girl’s death.

Michelle and Harrell Johnson are awaiting trial.
— Christine Vendel/The Star

Expanded study of crime lab plan would be costly

By FINN BULLERS

The Kansas City Star

Expanding a feasibility study of a high-tech crime lab in Johnson County will only add costs, delay construction and yield no new information, a county department head said Thursday.

County commissioners voted last week to put on hold a $150,000 feasibility study. Commissioner Doug Wood said the proposed study would have considered just one option: building the lab with a new County Communications Center near the county’s Sunset Office Building at 119th Street and Ridgeview Road in Olathe.

But Joe Waters, the county’s facilities director, told commissioners on Thursday that it would cost taxpayers an extra $216,000 to expand the study.

That’s because the expanded study itself would cost $55,400 more, but it also would delay by two months construction of the communications center, adding $161,000 to that project.

And in the end, Waters said, the conclusions from Horst Terrill & Karst Architects of Kansas City would be no different than what information would come from the less costly study option voted down by commissioners last week.

County facilities planners have been working under the assumption that the study would show whether it makes sense to build the crime lab and communications center at the geographic heart of the county and whether it would be a long-term cost savings.

The study, county planners have said, would also help determine whether Sheriff Frank Denning’s plea for a $30 million, 67,000-square-foot crime lab is realistic.

But last week, Wood challenged the study, saying it was flawed. He said the study did not consider whether it would be cheaper to renovate an existing building, scale back Denning’s request for a lab five times larger than the county’s current facility or use an off-site training facility.

That sparked a heated exchange between Denning and Wood.

Denning said a “superminority” of anti-tax advocates were driving Wood to block the study and the crime lab.

“I can assure that is not the public’s opinion,” Denning said. “Let’s not waste time. Let’s not waste money. Don’t toy with this” by “running up and down these rabbit trails.”

Wood shot back that his position was not driven by anti-tax supporters, but by a growing list of county spending priorities that has reached $1 billion. What if we can’t afford a 67,000-square-foot crime lab, Wood asked. “What does the county do then?”

Denning said: “That’s your job to figure out.”

Commissioner Dolores Furtado said it’s worth $55,000 to expand the study and determine whether the crime lab as proposed is justified.

Commissioners will vote on whether to authorize the expanded study at their meeting next Thursday.

Teen charged in robbery near restaurant

By CHRISTINE VENDEL

The Kansas City Star

Jackson County prosecutors charged a 17-year-old Thursday in the armed robbery of two men last month outside a Country Club Plaza restaurant.

Aaron L. Blanford of Kansas City faces two counts of first-degree robbery in the Aug. 9 robbery of two men behind McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant, 448 W. 47th St.

Court records give this account:

Blanford and a 15-year-old boy approached the victims about 10:45 p.m. as they talked in a parking lot. Blanford pointed a BB gun that resembled a semiautomatic handgun and demanded the men’s wallets. The 15-year-old took the wallets from the men’s pockets.

Later that night, one victim’s credit card was used to pay a cellular phone bill for Mozell E. Vaughan, a 26-year-old Kansas City woman now charged in the Aug. 21 attempted carjacking of two visitors from Iowa. Marcus Mack, 18, of Kansas City, also is charged in that crime.

Also according to court records, Vaughan told police that she, Mack and Blanford committed the attempted carjacking that began at 45th and Main streets. In that crime, two men and a woman in a maroon Dodge Aries chased two Iowa women in a Lexus down several Kansas City streets.

Five days later, a police sergeant spotted a maroon Aries. Vaughan, Mack, Blanford and a 15-year-old boy were inside, along with a silver BB gun. Blanford and the 15-year-old were released as police investigated. Blanford was re-arrested Wednesday night. The 15-year-old remained at large.
To reach Christine Vendel, call (816) 234-4438 or send e-mail to cvendel@kcst

Fugitive in standoff apparently kills himself

By ROBERT A. CRONKLETON

The Kansas City Star

A 33-year-old man wanted on a murder charge barricaded himself in a Kansas City, Kan., house for most of the day Thursday before apparently committing suicide.

The man, whom police declined to name until a positive identification was made, died of an apparent self-inflicted wound, said Kansas City, Kan., police Capt. James Brown.

The standoff started shortly after 9:30 a.m. at the home of one of the man’s relatives. Members of a felony apprehension unit accompanied by the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Department went to the house on Roosevelt Street, just north of Roswell Avenue, to try to arrest him.

Authorities had received a tip that the man had been seen the night before at the house, Brown said. Some of the man’s relatives left the house when police arrived.

When the man refused to surrender, police brought in the Kansas City, Kan., police department’s special enforcement unit. Police tried to get the man to surrender, but he stopped all contact with them early in the afternoon.

About 3 p.m., police fired tear gas into the house. They entered the house about 4:20 p.m. and found the man’s body.

Brown said no shots were fired by police and no one else was injured.

“We always hope that negotiations will go well and that standoffs will end peacefully,” Brown said. “This one ended in a tragedy.”
To reach Robert A. Cronkleton, call (816) 234-5994 or send e-mail to bcronkleton@kcstar.com.

Killer's death short-circuits '01 case

Platte County was preparing second capital trial

By GLENN E. RICE

The Kansas City Star

Convicted killer Wayne DuMond (left) could have faced capital murder charges in another death, Platte County authorities said Thursday, but he died in prison while they were building the case.

DuMond, who was a suspect in the June 2001 homicide of Sara Andrasek in Platte County, was found dead Wednesday in the Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, Mo.

DuMond, 55, was serving a life term in prison in the murder of a Parkville woman, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Andrasek, 23, was found murdered on June 21, 2001, in the apartment she shared with her husband at the Kelly Crossings, near Interstate 29 and Barry Road. She had learned only days earlier that she was pregnant with her first child, officials said publicly for the first time Thursday.

Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd said although his office had not filed criminal charges against DuMond, material from a latex glove and a three-inch piece of rope found in the bathtub drain linked DuMond to the slaying. There also was DNA evidence, but it gave a match of only 1 in 224,000, Zahnd said.

DuMond was in prison for the murder of Carol Shields. In that case, Zahnd said, the DNA evidence gave a match of 1 in 470 billion.

Zahnd said his office would have sought the death penalty in Andrasek’s rape and strangulation.

“Wayne DuMond did not live long enough to face justice for all of his crimes,” Zahnd said at a news conference. “His untimely death cut short his prosecution. Had this man lived, he eventually would have been called to account for these crimes.”

A Clay County jury convicted DuMond in 2003 of suffocating Shields, 39, on Sept. 20, 2000, and leaving her bound in an apartment at 7918 N. Holly St. in Kansas City, North.

On Thursday, Zahnd said his office had spent the last three years developing their case against DuMond in Andrasek’s death. As recently as Aug. 26, witnesses were being interviewed again.

Zahnd said Andrasek’s murder was similar to that of Shields.

The women were killed in Northland apartments near each other. Their clothes were missing. Both women had been tied up, but the materials used to bind them were missing when police arrived. Medical examiners found evidence of possible sexual assault in both cases.

DuMond was arrested June 22, 2001, after police received a report from authorities in Arkansas that material under Shields’ fingernails matched his DNA in an FBI database.

He had moved to Smithville in August 2000 after he married a woman who was part of a local church group that had visited him in prison in Arkansas.

DuMond had been paroled after serving 13 years for the 1984 rape of a Forrest City, Ark., teenager who was a distant relative of former President Bill Clinton. He was awaiting trial in that case when he said someone castrated him in 1985 in his Arkansas home.

Janet Williams, the mother of Andrasek, said she and her family had wished the criminal case against DuMond had been brought before a jury.

“He violated her; he murdered her,” Williams said. “Her last moments were filled with fear and pain.”
To reach Glenn E. Rice, call (816) 234-5908 or send e-mail to grice@kcstar.com.

Man charged after puppy is beaten

By CHRISTINE VENDEL

The Kansas City Star

A 30-year-old Kansas City man beat his girlfriend’s golden retriever puppy to death early Thursday, Jackson County prosecutors alleged.

Prosecutors charged Antonio D. Whitley with animal abuse, a class D felony.

Police think Whitley was under the influence of a drug. Whitley was in jail Thursday night, with bond set at $25,000.

A neighbor heard the puppy yelping loudly about 12:15 a.m. in the 2600 block of Chestnut Avenue. She went outside to see what was wrong and saw her neighbor standing in his yard.

According to the neighbor, she asked, “What’s going on? Is the dog OK?”

The man called back, “Yeah, it’s OK.”

But then he continued kicking, punching and throwing the dog as a woman with him watched, the neighbor said.

She called police. When she came back outside, the man picked up the puppy, which apparently was dead, and unhooked its leash. He then threw the puppy on his porch.

Officers arrived and arrested Whitley. Crime scene technicians photographed the scene.

The dog’s owner told police she was not home at the time.

When a detective tried to interview Whitley at the hospital Thursday morning, Whitley was “restrained and medicated and was unable to make a coherent statement,” according to court records.
To reach Christine Vendel, police reporter, call (816) 234-4438 or send e-mail to vendel@kcstar.com .

Home invasion in KC North

By GLENN E. RICE

The Kansas City Star

A 40-year-old Kansas City, North man was hospitalized late Thursday after being attacked by two men who broke into his home.

The robbery was reported just before 10 p.m. in the 2600 block of Northeast 42nd Street. The victim told police two men rushed into his home after he responded to a knock on his front door, said Capt. Rich Lockhart, a police spokesman.

One of the assailants struck the victim with a pistol. He fell to the floor as he struggled with the attacker. During the altercation, the second assailant slashed him several times with a box cutter.

The robbers then stole a small amount of cash and a stereo before fleeing out of a back door. The victim sustained wounds to the back of head and to his right palm. He was taken to a hospital for treatment with non-life threatening injuries. His condition was not available, Lockhart said.

Police did not have a detailed description of the suspects, he said.

To reach Glenn E. Rice, call (816) 234-5908 or send e-mail to grice@kcstar.com.

4 years for child porn

Man headed to prison for child porn

Norman, Okla., man was sentenced to four years in federal prison Thursday for receiving and possessing child pornography.

Eldon O. Walters, 36, pleaded guilty in March, admitting that he received child porn over the internet between January and May 2002 while he lived in Parkville, Mo.

He also admitted possessing the material on May 21, 2002.