Trial set to begin for millionaire accused of gunning down lawyer at his Brookside home

The long delayed criminal trial of the 84-year-old farmer, baby furniture maker and self-made millionaire accused in the 2017 shooting death of a personal injury attorney is set to begin Monday in the Jackson County courthouse.

David G. Jungerman of Raytown faces charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for allegedly gunning down Tom Pickert on the brisk and sunny morning of Oct. 25, 2017.

Pickert was shot on the front porch of his Brookside home in the 200 block of West 66th Terrace, where he had just returned from walking his two sons to school.

Pickert’s wife, Emily Riegel, was inside the home when she heard two gunshot blasts. Riegel rushed outside and found Pickert fatally wounded, with a single gunshot wound to his right temple, according to prosecutors.

Jungerman is accused of killing Pickert after the lawyer won a $5.75 million civil payout for a homeless man who Jungerman shot in 2012 because he thought he was stealing copper from his baby furniture business.

The victim, Jeffrey Harris, had to have his leg amputated above the knee.

The criminal trial is the culmination of nearly five years of legal jousting between Jungerman’s criminal defense attorneys, a gaggle of civil lawyers and Jackson County prosecutors.

Pickert’s widow and family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2018 against Jungerman, his daughter, Angelia Buesing, and several family-owned businesses and trusts.

The lawsuit was resolved in August 2020 when Jackson County Circuit Judge Kevin Harrell approved a confidential settlement, according to KCUR.

Jury selection in the criminal trial is scheduled to begin Monday morning and opening arguments are expected to be heard Tuesday. The trial is expected to last almost two weeks. It was not known Friday whether Jungerman, who has pleaded not guilty, will testify in his own defense.

In the months leading up to the criminal trial, Dan Ross, a former assistant Jackson County prosecutor and longtime criminal defense attorney who is representing Jungerman, has sought to discredit the reliability of investigators and their handling of critical evidence.

As part of that effort, Ross has accused Kansas City detectives — some who were involved in the Pickert investigation — of planting evidence in another homicide. He also said that investigators in the Pickert case either did not write reports after interviewing potential witnesses or they destroyed their notes.

In other court filings, Ross alleged that among the evidence Kansas City police destroyed were 35 or more license plate readings on Jungerman’s van from the day of the shooting and from the days and weeks leading up to the killing.

Ross contended the license plate readers would have shown that Jungerman was elsewhere at the time of the killing. It also would have proved that Jungerman’s van was never detected in the victim’s neighborhood prior to the shooting, Ross claims, undermining the prosecutor’s claim of stalking.

Yet Circuit Court Judge John M. Torrence, who is presiding over the criminal trial, dismissed many of those pleadings or delayed deciding whether he would allow them to be presented during the trial.

Jungerman emerged as a suspect in Pickert’s 2017 killing when police learned he had threatened Pickert.

Riegel told homicide detectives about a chilling encounter between her husband and Jungerman that might have helped them with their investigation.

Moments after the jury’s verdict in the Harris case was announced, Jungerman confronted Pickert in the courtroom and in a threatening manner told him: “None of this matters. I have 186 guns. I did it once before. I will do it again. You can’t touch me,” according to prosecutors.

In court filings, Ross denied his client ever made such claims.

Yet Pickert’s killing remained unsolved for months. Kansas City police said at one point that Jungerman, who was the focus of media scrutiny, was not a suspect in the shooting.

Police eventually seized several key pieces of evidence that helped pave the way for prosecutors to file first-degree murder charges against Jungerman.

Detectives examined hundreds of hours of video from surveillance cameras that showed a van matching the description of Jungerman’s, but not its license plate.

Executing a search warrant at Jungerman’s business, police found a printout of an online Jackson County property tax record for Pickert, which listed his home address, according to prosecutors.

They also later discovered that less than two weeks before Jungerman allegedly shot Pickert, he searched Google to apparently figure out which firearm to use, according to prosecutors.

On his computer, homicide detectives said they found an article titled: “Can a 22LR caliber bullet penetrate a human skull?”

A week before the shooting, Jackson County court officials had started the process of seizing Jungerman’s real estate to pay the $5.75 million judgment. The court filed paperwork that would prevent Jungerman from selling or transferring the property, according to prosecutors.

Then in March 2018, Jungerman was involved in a new incident.

This time, he was accused of chasing and shooting at another man at a recycling center, suspecting him of stealing iron pipe from his baby furniture business.

This allowed detectives to search his residence, where they found Jungerman’s cell phone that contained a recording where Jungerman allegedly recorded himself — by accident — saying he killed Pickert.

“People uh know that I murdered that son of a...,” prosecutors allege Jungerman said.

Prosecutors charged Jungerman with fourth-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon for the March 2018 incident.

Six days later, Jean Peters Baker held a press conference and announced her office had charged Jungerman with killing Pickert.

According to court documents, Jungerman shot Pickert with a .17-caliber firearm — a rifle used by farmers and ranchers to kill pests.

Long after Jungerman’s criminal trial concludes, more legal troubles still loom for him.

Forty-seven days after the trial in the Pickert killing is set to begin, Jungerman is scheduled to appear in a separate courtroom where he will face assault and weapons charges that were filed in the 2018 shooting.