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The case involves
events that occurred in the early morning hours of Nov. 29, 1988. Two
security guards – Robert and Deborah Riggs (brother and sister)
were working as security guards at a construction site in south
Kansas City. The Riggses testified that they had gone to the nearby
Quik Trip, looking for several persons they had seen walking near the
construction site, when someone pulled into the Quik Trip, saying
there was a fire down the road. The pickup truck of Deborah Riggs was
on fire, as was a trailer across the highway containing 20,000 pounds
of ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil). Two fire department pumpers,
containing six firefighters arrived. First they put out the fire in
the pickup truck, then went across the highway to fight the fire in
the trailer. When the trailer exploded, all six firefighters were
killed instantaneously. The first explosion set fire to a second
trailer, also containing ANFO, which also exploded. For a complete
discussion of the subsequent investigation, indictments and trial,
see: Firefighters Case Part I and Part II.
The 8th Circuit
decision seriously misstates the facts of the case repeatedly.
The decision
states that the defendants were the immediate suspects of police,
which is untrue. Immediately after the explosion the police
investigated a large number of individuals because of tips pouring in
from often anonymous callers.
The federal
government, which conducted its own, separate investigation (headed
by Dave True), focused on organized labor – and as late as 1994
True said organized labor was the focus of the federal investigation.
The words "organized labor" are not to be found in the 8th
Circuit opinion – although defense lawyers battled throughout
the trial to be allowed to put DOL agent Gene Schram on the stand
(Schram was head of Labor Racketeering in Kansas City).
Although it did
not come out at trial, because the defendants did not testify (for
reasons set forth later), on Dec. 8, 1988, it was defendant Darlene
Edwards who told the police that, shortly after the first explosion,
she saw a black pickup truck, resembling one owned by Richard Brown,
driving past her house at a high rate of speed. That resulted in the
police harassing Brown for years – until, years later, he made a
statement to police pointing the finger of blame at Edwards, Frank
and Skip Sheppard. (Throughout the trial the government portrayed the
five defendants as tightly knit). Actually, Brown gave two
statements: In the first one he named six individuals, in the second
one he narrowed the field to three, which may be the reason the
government did not offer his statements into evidence at the trial.
In late 1994, the
ATF set Edwards up on a drug bust (using her stepson). During
questioning, she denied any knowledge of the explosion, or who was
involved, and repeatedly requested a polygraph test. At the
conclusion of the interview she was arrested for the drug charge and
told she would go to prison for five years. She was then informed she
had a "window of opportunity," if she cooperated in the
Firefighters case. She replied that she didn’t know anything,
and again asked for a polygraph test. The ATF later showed
Brown’s statement to Darlene Edwards, indicating that she could
take the fall for the explosion unless she cooperated.
Several days later
Edwards contacted ATF, saying she was willing to cooperate. She said
Brown and Bryan Sheppard had come to her house late the night of Nov.
28, 1988 and said their car had run out of gas, asking her if she
would drive them to Quik Trip to buy gas for their car. In her
statement she said that she parked behind Quik Trip, smoking a joint,
while they went to buy gas. Then, she said, they directed her to the
construction site and wanted her to drive up a rugged hill (to the
area where the trailers were parked) and that she refused to do so,
because she was driving a new rental car. At that point, according to
her statement, she overheard them talking about doing something
criminal, and they said they were going to start a fire as a
diversion. She said she then refused to have any part of what they
were doing, and left, leaving them at the construction site.
It was these
conflicting statements by Brown and Edwards that caused the five
defendants to ultimately not testify in their own defense –
also, since Brown would testify last, Edwards was unwilling to give
him a chance to sandbag her.
The 8th Circuit,
in citing a statement given by Darlene Edwards to ATF (a statement
she later renounced) says that Edwards, in her statement,
"agreed" to take Bryan Sheppard and Richard Brown to the
construction site so they could set a fire. That is contrary to what
her statement actually said:
"(Darlene
Edwards): After I had come home from being over at Frank’s
[Edward’s was living with defendant Frank Sheppard in 1988]
brother’s brother-in-law and sister’s, okay, Frank and I
had come home. He was drunk and wanting to argue as usual, right? We
went to bed. I pacified him, he passed out. Someone [the government
redacted the named of Brown and Bryan Sheppard] come up and said
they’d run out of gas. Wanted to know, could I take them down to
get some gas, right? We were not in his black car or as Ronnie says.
It was a rental car that I had gotten, because my car had been
stolen. Okay, my car was gone. It was a rental car, Dodge K-car, I
think they called it because of the suspension was like a
"K", okay?
"(ATF Agent
Harry Lett): Uh huh.
"(Edwards):
Okay, and I took them down to Quik Trip. I had, I usually kept a
joint rolled beside the bed because at that time, that’s all I
did was, you know, I’d just indulge in smoking pot once in a
while. Just the worst of my vices. So, I took them down. They took a
joint. I parked behind the building, behind the Quik Trip, because I
was smoking a joint.
"(Lett): Yeah.
"(Edwards):
And if&ldots;
"(Lett):
That’s the Quik Trip at?
"(Edwards):
The Quik Trip at 85th and 71 Highway. Yeah, they went around. They
got some gas. They got in the car. They said the car was up the road.
I said what are you doing up there? They said, well, we’re just
doing 4-wheeling up in the hills, right? So, we get up there. Like
we’re going to go over here and over there, and I said, what are
you doing? Well, we’re going to steal something. We’re
going, we’re gonna take care of something. I said, well look,
I’m not staying here and playing if you are playing with
gasoline. I’m not getting my funky ass blown up because I love
the fuck out of me, and I left them there, period!"
How, then, does
the 8th Circuit conclude that she "agreed" to take them to
the site so they could set a fire? It’s also worth noting that,
in her first interview, where she repeatedly requested a polygraph
test, while denying any knowledge of the explosion, she made no
similar request during this second interview – nor did the
government ask her to take a polygraph test, even though she was
changing her story 180 degrees in two days.
On the issue of
actual innocence – and the effort by the defense to show that a
security guard at the site (Deborah Riggs), set the fires to collect
the insurance on her pickup truck – the court obfuscated that
issue by saying the defendants were allowed to rigorously
cross-examine the government’s witnesses, which is untrue –
since the trial judge specifically forbade the defense from
cross-examining Riggs about her admission to Prosecutor Becker (on
the first day of trial) that, in the early 1970s, she had paid her
roommate to steal her car so she could collect the insurance.
In fact, a major
issue on appeal was the fact the trial judge refused to allow the
defense to call a witness who claimed he drove past the site several
times before the fires and saw a pickup truck with its hood up –
which would have impeached Riggs’ testimony that her pickup
truck (the only one known to be on the site that night) was
functioning properly that day, and that no work had been done on her
truck. The trial judge ruled that such testimony was too remote, and
that the witness had not come forward sooner (he contacted the
defense during trial) – yet, many of the government witnesses
came forward years after the explosion (after a $50,000 reward for
information in the case was posted in all of the prisons in Missouri
and Kansas), and testified to conversations that allegedly occurred
while everyone present was either drinking or doing drugs.
The 8th Circuit
also ruled that a gas can had been found at the site after the
explosion, and that there had been testimony there were gas cans
around his and Edwards’ house (there was testimony from Becky
Edwards, the teenaged daughter of Darlene Edwards, that she and
Darlene often cut neighborhood lawns to earn money.) The 8th Circuit
incorrectly stated: "&ldots;and a witness testified that Frank
and Skip Sheppard had many gas cans as part of their lawn mowing business." |
