HIS NAME WAS MURDER-Phil LeVota

the victims. From the horrific crime where the murderer made his son help him cut off the victim's head and hands, to the robbery and rape of the sweet neighborhood grandmother. This is a hard to put down book that keeps you wanting more. The book that we're featuring this evening is his Name was Murder. Real Kansas City crime stories from the prosecutor with my special guest, journalist and author

and prosecutor Phil Levoda. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for greeted this interview Phil Levoda.

the criminal justice area. I went to Central Missouri State University and got a criminal justice degree and didn't know whether I would follow into some law enforcement worker as an attorney, but then went to law school and in my third year of law school, I had the opportunity to be an intern at the Jackson County prosct Attorney's Office. Jackson County is the county that Kansas City, Missouri is in, that's on the western side of Missouri. The people of

Frommith the state of Missouri. Saint Louis is on the east of Kansas City on the west. The Jackman County prosecut Attorney's Office is the largest prosecutorial office in five states, and we had over one hundred prosecutors in the office and handled all of the state felony serious crimes from homicides to robbery, to rape to that type of thing. And so I had the opportunity as a third year to be hired by the prosecutor's office to be an

intern in the state of Missouri. As a third year law student, the law allows you to actually appear in court on behalf of the state if you have a supervisor attorney with you. And I had the opportunity in my third year law school to try eight cases and to give opening statements to cross them witnesses give the closing argument in homicide cases. So I just fell in love with being a prosecutor and being the guy with a white hat and being the guy that was putting

the bad guy's a way. As I graduated from law school, I was given an opportunity to go to law school, which I loved and I actually excelled at it, and I had a couple of different offers to go work for a big firm or to go work for the Jackson Process Office making no money, and I decided to go make no money working as a prosecutor, which I loved, and I worked there for ten years. I was hired

by now United States Center Claire mccaskell. She was the county prosecutor at that time, and in my stent over a decade, we had several prosecutors come and go. I had the opportunity to try so many jury trials have such a great impact on the community. One of the job opportunities I had was to supervise the Neighborhood Prosecution Unit, where we worked with the police department out in the community,

and I just loved it. I loved being in court and being the last offense from someone that viciously violently killed someone, whether they go to prison or go free. And I loved that opportunit so as I did that. You know, when you're in the prosecution business at dinner parties of social events, so I think people would like to ask you what type of cases you're working on, what's going on with that? And I in my book I put in the four or book. I also would

have dinner with my grandmother every Tuesday night. I mean I was a poor government worker, and she would make me a hot, home cooked meal so I wouldn't miss it. And every Tuesday night I would sit with my grandmother and she would We would talk about all sorts of things, but it would always get around to what cases are you working on? And I would tell her, here's what's going on, here's this case. And she loved to hear

because people love hearing true crime stories. But I also I love talking to her about because I got feedback from her, which is what the average person of what would be one of my jurors would say to me. They'd ask me questions you know that I didn't think about, because you get in to the owns and the dirt of trying this case, legality and this Supreme Court case and this and that, and you forget sometimes as a young prosecutor, it's the theater of the courtroom. And these

jurors are twelve people from the community. They don't know the law, but they're watching everything that happens. And so as I would tell these stories to my grandmother, she'd asked me questions, and I would think, you know, I didn't think about that, but I'll actually one of these twelve jurors were, and I would make sure I took that into the courtroom with me and made sure I used that common sense and relating to jurors. So that's

what kind of got me. After I left the prosecutor's office and went into private practice, I would still hear about stories and see what people had asked me, what was your most interesting story? And so I sat down and I had ordered the files of some of the most unique cases that I had, and I didn't have some of the most high profile cases here in Kansas City.

If your prosecutor, people will say did you did you do the Boberdella case and some of the high profile cases, And I didn't have those, but I had some very unique ones that are great stories, I guess, for lack of a better phrase to compare them or explain them. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna put these down in writing and I'm gonna tell these stories. And so I sat down, and that's what got me to the point of putting this book together.

has a lot of problems. And throughout my book, I had a university professor that is actually having people read my book and it's not for the crime part, for the sociology because he's found that every one of my stories talks about how drugs lead good people to make bad decisions, how parenting and the lack of parenting leads people to make bad decisions, and so most of these all these stories are kind of, I guess, a microcosm of what's going on in the inner cities in our

entire country. And all these people that have got involved have decided that crime is better than getting a job, that drugs making more money than going to work, and the violence is the answer to solving problems. So that's where the common weave throughout this book is. And the first case you're talking about is about the gang rivalry and how people make urble decisions based on violence when you're talking about selling drugs.

really on the same side. Gang wise how this works, because this is important to.

all tricked out with everything. It's convertible, and when he showed up in the neighborhood, it's like the ice cream man was coming. And everyone knew Dennis Moore and everyone knew what he's up to. And if you needed any drugs, Dennis Moore was the guy to get it. And he would drive around the neighborhood of a several block area

in Kansas City and he was well known. Well. He met a younger guy, Johnny Chappel, And you know, as the drug dealing goes, sometimes you're sitting around doing nothing, you're getting ready to get in trouble or getting ready to sell some drugs or getting ready to run away from the police. So Johnny Chappell and Dennis Moore started a relationship with friendship. They'd hang out together, they would go drinking together, they'd go drive around and talk to

girls together, They'd do drugs together. And even though Dennis Moore essentially was from the other side of the gang than Johnny Chappell, they started kind of relationship and they started hanging out together, and which was fine. Dennis Moore made money, Johnny Chappell got cheaper drugs. But when it came to the other members of Johnny Chapel's gang, there were other guys that did not like that Johnny Chappell was hanging around with Dennis Moore.

of guys that are in a gang. And Calvin Miller did not like the fact that Johnny Chappell was hanging around with Dennis More And one time they were over at someone's house, hanging out in the alley. They were smoking to PCP, they were drinking all day. And Calvin Miller, who was a violent guy, was also a guy that didn't miss an opportunity to rob someone and steal someone and make some money. And he started chiding Johnny Chappell about hanging out with Dennis Moore. Why would you do that,

He's not part of our gang. Johnny said, he's my friend. Don't give me such a hard time about it. And Calvin Miller said, oh, I'm going to, and unprovoked grabbed Johnny by the throat and put bullet a gun against his head and said, here's what you're gonna do, or I'm gonna shoot you. Now, everybody else in the gang, they're all buddies. They all grow up together, their buddies, and that no one wanted to cross Calvin Miller. Calvin

had a story. We never really found out an investigation that he had murdered anyone except the charge he got charged with. But he was known to be a violent guy, and he was known to have possibly had some homicide that nothing was ever proved, so bad reason to be intimidated and afraid and hesitant to cross Calvin Millman. So even his brother, Johnny Tavil's brother did not intervene when

this happened. But as John as Calvin Miller put his gun to Johnny Chapel's head, he said, well, if that's the way you feel, you're gonna show us and we're gonna go rob Dennis Moore, and you're gonna help us do that, or I'm gonna kill you. And people in regular society throw around the world, I'll kill you, I'll kill you, and it doesn't really mean anything. If Calvin Miller told you on the streets of Kansasity Missouri that he was gonna kill you. You should take it seriously.

And at some point in Natasha's life, she made some bad decisions and started doing drugs and started running with the wrong crowd and ended up in a drug house somewhere where she met Dennis Moore. And when she met Dennis Moore, she already had a two year old child

that she had from another man. And the story that Natasha had gone through is her parents had helped her and begged her to move back home with them to help get her out of the drug culture, and she didn't do it, and her parents were just so frustrated. Sometimes they just had to throw their hands up. Didn't know what to do with Natasha. So Natasha met Dennis Moore. And if you're a single mother, you have a young child, you don't have a job. And here comes Dennis Moore.

He's flashy, he's got a huge wads of cash, he's driving this great car. He's maybe someone that you want to send him time with. And that Natasha did, and Natasha and her son JD moved in with Dennis Moore and became Indiana Avenue. And the house on India Avenue in the Indiana Avenue was Dennis Moore's drug selling operation too. When he wasn't in the mobile convertible drug selling car, he would have a kind of a sign to people if you're if he was open for any drugs, his

nightlight or his porch light would be on. So Natasha moved in with Dennis. And this house that we talk about is not a nice house. It's furnished very well with a couch and a stereo and a TV. Other than that, it's deteriorated. It's got holes in the walls, it's got trash everywhere else. And Natasha was raising her son JD in that house. She was a dedicated mother

on all accounts. She loved her son, She wanted to do better for her son, and she was in a situation that she found herself she couldn't get out of and was working her way towards getting out of it. It was a temporary thing, what she told everyone to be. Living with Dennis Moore. She didn't want her son around drug deals because when she was home and JD was there, people would come to the house and buy drugs, and the people buying drugs are not of the best caliber

people you want around your two year old. So Dennis Moore and Natasha Morgan were a couple at this time.

They'd open the door, they put the gun there. They said, Dennis Moore, give us your money, give us a drug. And they'd be gone at fifteen minutes. So Calvin Miller have that gun upside Johnny Chapel's head and said, we're all gonna be back here in a couple hours, and this is what we're doing. Everybody better be back here. And as they left, Calvin Miller pointed his gun across

everyone said right everybody, And everyone said right now. Who knows which one of these guys were okay with the idea or which one of the guys we're concerned about Calvin Miller hunting them down later if they didn't show up. But then later at as it got dark, they got back together, started drinking, doing some more drugs as it got later than night. Then they decided to begin.

done for the night. He turned the light off, which meant, don't bother me, I'm not selling the drugs, and he sat down with his feet up and started watching TV. Natasha sat on the couch with her and JD was playing on the floor. So the guys all got out went up to the door. Johnny was the first one up the steps and everyone else kind of stood around the outside of the door. So Dennis Moore heard her knocking the door, and he knew that no one was there to sell drugs, so he wasn't in a hurry

to get out. He was also working and ecuperating from a gunshot wound that he had on his leg, that he had gotten a drive by shooting, that they had shot at someone else and he had got shot. So he heard the knock on the door. He wasn't thinking it was anything big, just he wasn't any hurry to answer the work so excuse the first he had confirmed the knocks, but then the thumping kept going, so barefoot and being annoyed, Dennis got himself up and out of

the chair. In the dark, he groggily limped his way to the front door. So as he walked he looked out. He couldn't see anything, and then he hit the porch light. And as he slipped on the porch light and peered through the people, he noticed that there was someone out there, and he was surprised to see his friend Johnny on the opposite side of the door. So Dennis Moore quickly turned the light on outside and he unlocked the first of the three dead bolts, then the second, and then

the third because this is a familiar face. He saw his friend Johnny, and little did he know that the rest of the group was outside preparing themselves for an ambush on Dennis Moore. So the thing was that it wasn't like Dennis Moore to do that, I mean, very uncharacteristic. He excelled at the craft of selling drugs and staying alive and not getting rotten. So it's maybe he was tired that night, maybe that he didn't think it was anyone that was wanting to buy drugs, or maybe it

was just the wrong move. But he opened the door and he smiled at his friend john But Johnny then immediately stepped aside, and as Calvin's plan was, the door was open and all the guys rushed in the room.

against the kitchen sink. There's God is the Dennis is against the ledge of the kitchen sink in the kitchen, and Calvin starts showing his true violence. He pushes the nose of the shotgun right into Dennis Moore's forehead. As he's getting Dennis Moore under control, all the rest of the guys scattered to the corners of the room and watched and waited for Calvin's orders. Now, when they went in there, Dennis Moore was watching TV and he had this great bowe system that was really loud, so the

TV was really loud at that time. But instead of turning the volume down, someone just smashed the TV so it would break and there was no sound in the house. And Johnny Schapple was the last person to come in. He had knocked on the door. Then the smiling face everyone else rushed in and he was the last one to come in, and he finally came in and shut the door behind him. So Dennis Moore has a gun glued to his forehead. But Dennis Moore is pissed off tot these mask guys that entered his house and he

wasn't having in his gun to his head. Business he caught his breath for being scared, and now was in survival mode. Dennis then makes a quick sweep move with his arm and knocks the shotgun from Calvin's grip, and the shotgun actually flew out of Calvin's hand and slid across the floor, and Dennis Moore charged him, and for that foot second, Dennis Moore was back in control and gove across the kitchen floor toward the shotgun. And now

they're fighting for the shotgun. But you know, he had that bullet loom and his foot in his leg, so it made him slower, and Calvin got a shotgun first, and so then Calvin's mad. So this is almost two o'clock in the morning as this is unfolding. Natasha has been screaming until someone had finally put a gun in her face and told her to shut up. Jd is a two year old boy and he's dressed in a

cowboy pajamas and he doesn't know what's going on. One of the guys said earlier is that he didn't even seem pay So I don't know what kind of commentary that is on what JD got to see in his young life. But he wasn't mad or scared, he just seemed not sure what was happening. So everyone is now trying to secure the area, and the next thing we're we're gonna do is talk about doing this sport where the gun is. And as this is going on, JD gets up and goes over Johnny chap over and hands

Johnny one of his plastic soldier toys. And when this violence is going on in this room, this little boy is just wanting to play with someone. And he tugged at Johnny Tapple's leg as if to play, and Johnny puts him, scoots him aside and says, no, step aside, We're not going to play. These are the adults in JD's life are supposed to be protecting him, and they just disregarded his tender age with their lifestyle to be able to put in this situation. So Natasha, she's in

fear for her own life and for JD's life. Is now JD starts crying because no one's going to play with him. He doesn't know what's going on. So a couple of men focused on Tasha and talk to her. While in the kitchen, Salvin has Mark Kile's AK forty seven pointing Natasha, and he has his shotgun pointed at Dennis Moore. Now Natasha's normal pride build attitude kicked into full gear and she temporarily refused to give into the

scare tactics. She turned towards the gunman and tried to use her son as a bargaining tool and say, please, don't hurt my son, let him leave, let me get out of here, or let him get out of here and take me, which none of the guys cared about that at all. So in the meantime, Calvin Miller says, okay, guys, let's find the drugs, and he dispatches two of the guys downstairs to the garage of the guys who go through all the doors, and he turns around to confront Dennis Moore at that time.

dispatched across the house to start looking at everything. Matthew goli and Royal Chappell went in search of the drugs and looked for the car because then they thought, well, we'll steal the car too, that's going to be worth the money. And so as everyone went off to look for other stuff, Calvin had Dennis Moore the kitchen. Now Calvin's mad because Dennis Moore kicked the gun out of

his hand. Calvin's mad because there's no money. So Calvin's are gaining control of the situation, and out of nowhere, he takes the butt into the gun and pummels Dennis Moore in the forehead. It knocks Dennis More to the ground, and now Calvin had complete control over him. Moore fell to his knees and in one quick move, Calvin repositions his gun in his left hand, grabbed the neck of Dennis Moore's long sleeved shirt and dragged him into the

same room where Powell kept Natasha. So now he's taken Jennis Moore from the kitchen back into the family room living area where Mark Powell has Natasha, and Mark Powell has his AK forty seven on Natasha. Now for the same time, Calvin stepped, stepping over Dennis More and straddling him and says, where is the money? And he points the barrel of his twenty gage right in Dennis Moore's face.

More this distinctly covers his face and turns away from the gun and turned his face away, and he's screaming, I have no money. I have no money. If I have money, i'd give you money. I have no money. I say what I can do. I can call someone, I can get some money over here, but I don't have any money. Well, Calvin wasn't satisfied with that, and he also now realized that none of his crew had

found any cash anywhere. So while Dennis Moore's lining face up between his legs, Calvin seemed to become conscious of his own ability to be violent, and he thought, wait, I I do not shoot Dennis Moore yet until he gets some cash over here. So Calvin then lilt his side twelve foot under Moore's shirt and ordered him to take off his clothes, stook back and allowed Dennis Moore the room he needed to take his jeans and shirt off.

As Dennis Moore took off his clothes, Calvin searched the clothes for drugs or money and found the car keys. Other than that, he came up empty. Galvin then tied Dennis Moore's feet together with a shirt, and he ripped off an extension cord from the wall and tied his hands up. But he's kind of in a weird way that was uncomforably behind his head with one hand up behind his head, and then he rolled up Calvin Moore

on the stomach. And Calvin never believed that Dennis Moore when he kept saying he had no drugs or money, and he was certain he had some sort of stash inside the house and was confident he was going to find it with all of his health, of his buddies and making Dennis Moore help him. So, regardless of Moore's please, Calvin was not gonna let him not give him the drugs. And remember all these guys that smoked a lot of marijuana that day and lace with PCP, so nobody's in

their right mind. Ronald Chapel, Matthew Gollie, they're downstairs and they're looking at the car and trying to get in the car at this time, and Calvin and is and that's what Dennis Moore, and so is pal and Natasha Morgan. Trevor Wilson is there. He's a gang member with the history of violence. But even though he was a bad guy, he's looking at Calvin Miller and saying, wow, Calvin Miller has gone too far. We thought we were just gonna rob this guy. And this is really getting out of hand.

At some point, all the guys take off there and Dana's and this time Danis Moore knows, yeah, this is it for me. Now I get to see who they are. I'm not getting out of this alive.

she needs to make the move towards that. And as she does and has, Dennis tries to make his way, crawling towards it. Alvin finds it and he grabs it, and he shoots an evil smile at Dennis more as if to say, too bad, I just found your last chance to live. He tucked the gun in his wallet or in his waistband and gave him that terrible smile that would be one of the last things he ever saw. Now at the same time, Natasha was on the couch and she kicked in play of the legs as they

were trying to take her clothes off. But they took all of her clothes off turn Wilson, passing his hands around her ankles and propped her legs on the table. Wilson kept a tight grip on Natasha just as Pal obstructed, they locked her in exposed legs in a fixed spread position.

Now here's where this immoral objectives become clear to her, and her worst nightmare became a reality, and she shivered and she cried as Powell placed her rose tattoo on her naked right shoulder with his rough fingers and then grabbed her arm around the back of her neck and ran the gun his AK forty seven, between her and down her stomach. And before he could touch anything else, Natasha realized she had nothing to lose and fought hard

against the man about to rape her. And that's when she reached up and using everything she had, grabbed Pal's face with her hand and dug her nails deep into the skin, creates some long open wounds, gushed blood immediately, and her active bravery in the spaces intending death only tests off foul and increase his aggressive touching and mauling of her, and not to go into too much detail,

he uses AK forty seven to rape Natasha. At the same time this is going on, Calvin is still talking to Dennis Moore, and Dennis Moore says, well, I tell you what, I can call my brother and my brother can bring over some money. My brother can bring over some drugs. All you gotta do is let me have

the phone and I'll call him. So takes the phone call and Calvin holds the phone as someone else answers, and instead of saying what Calvin want him to say, Dennis was supposed to say, bring some money over there, he starts talking in some sort of code, and Calvin knows that he'd been had and that Dennis Moore had called his brother but had not asked him to come over, but it also had but actually had told him what was going on, and they had some sort of secret code.

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So don't wait, that's blue Apron dot com slash murder. When we last left off, we're just speaking with or talking about Dennis Moore. Supposingly to call his brother to get some money for these desperate gang members about to rape his girlfriend and terrorizes her son, and he knows this is life and death. He gives a code to his brother rather than what he's supposed to do instructed by these gang members. What happens next for Dennis Moore?

pulled the trigger. The sound in his small room was deafening, and the power behind the blast of the shotgun caused Dennis Moore's body to flip awkwardly from the face down position to face up and Calvin evil. Calvin was amused and laughed, and Calvin was of course sure Dennis Moore was dead, but the blow in the back of the head did not kill him, and Dennismore was still alive.

Dennis Moore's nightmare wasn't over little breathing. However, the blast that Calvin directed towards the back, and Moore said it had actually been taken by Moore's hands because his hand and was tied weirdly, was in front of his head and so the awkward wave tied his hands had suffered most of the blow from the gunshot, so it was meant for his head. So at this point Johnny Chappell hits standing guard. Calvin has shot Dennis, and Calvin is laughing.

He's enjoying. He's laughing about the fact that his body slipped over and he didn't notice that Denismore was still alive. And finally Ronald Chapel said to Calvin, hey man, big boy's still breathing, and Calvin, if I will, I'll be Dan, and he pulled the shotgun directly Densmore, still beating hard, and fired again. Blood splattered across the room, sprayed them. Both Ronald and the other guys are startled at the sound. They doesn't think this is supposed to be a murder.

After committed this brutal murder, Calvin then moves towards the sofa to join Natasha and Mark Powell. Natasha doesn't know what's gonna happen. She of course thinks she's next, but something happens, and Calvin and uh Powell tell her, okay, go ahead, put your clothes on and go into the back room. So Natasha now gets dressed, he's fully clothed, and she stumbles out of the hall towards her son, who was in the back bedroom. She opened the back

bedroom door and Jad ran to her arms. She grabbed her and sat on the battress that was on the bedroom floor and thought maybe she was gonna be okay. She was of course very distraught by then. This is murder, but she thinks that maybe her and her son might still be alive. So she turned around and came face to face with the two men that have now followed her into the bedroom. Their guns are drawn. They backed her towards the bed, and as the back of her

legs met the massa, she fell down. She swung her legs over with the one available hand and showed it herself and a baby closer to her head. And Ronald and Calvin came in and they said, we are going to leave you here if you won't tell anybody what we did, and the usually wered of cold blood to kill her a lot, and it's rarely understood that this

is one time that it was crystal clear. Calvin threw Natasha to the un her stomach and ordered Pile to put a pillow over the back of her head, and he told her to count to one hundred before she got up, so they had time to leave. He also said, don't tell the police who we were, so Natasha muffled out an agreement, with her face in the mat and the pill over the back of her head. But instead of even Calvin placed the shotgun against that pillar. Calvin

smirked a pale and pulled the trigger. He fired that shotgun into the pill into Natasha's head. The blast was even louder than the smaller, better than it was with Dennis Moore. But unlike her boyfriend's hands, the pillow that covered Natasha's head didn't spare her life, and she was dead as soon as the gun went off. He killed her with even more detached emotional detachment than when he

shot her boyfriend. His shotgun blast scares JT JD so much he doesn't know what's going and he jumped onto his mother and it's crying hysterically, and we never really forgot the record of whose idea was that. Somehow the men thought that maybe getting a little boy snack might help eased his emotions or watching his mother head be shot off. So he searched in the kitchen. They popped some popcorn for JD. And he sat in the kitchen eating popcorn, crying with his mother in the other room.

And then they left. They took his car from downstairs. Then they left. As they left to speed up the story, as they leave, Dennis Moore's brother came in a rolling gunfight ensued. I was wrong. The stats at street of kansaity of Dennis Moore's brother tried to follow them, and when the police arrived, they found JD pulled up with his mother's body crying. And that's the end of the story. And that's where the police department got involved and could

not find any leads for a year. They investigated for two years, for three years, for four years, for five years. Became a cold case. These guys had getten away and had gotten away with murder.

cops about what we did in Natasha Morgan Dennis Moore. Well, Chapel Brothers didn't do it. So Cheesy Rat called, I can't say misserve homicide unit. Sin said I have some information about a crime. Now he would have kept his mouth shut. No one ord have a norime. It got boarded over to the cold case squad and Cheesy Rat had some information that made some sense and only people

that would be familiar to homicide would know. And one of the detectives got involved and made a phone call over and said, hey, here's what's going on when you think about this, and they decided. We talked about it, and he said it's worth a trip down in the sententiary. Went down there, talked to Cheesy Rat Calvin Miller, and he said, told everybody who everybody was. And the police

department did another investigation. Talked to the Chapel brothers. Trevor Wilson this time was dead, talked to Matthew Bully and everyone was charged. Everyone pled guilty, made deals except for Mark Powell. And we had to try Mark Powell. As Mark Powell was on trial, we had had each of the defendants come in and testify to their part of the case. Now, no one wanted to admit that their larger role in it. But from everyone talk, Calvin Miller

was de instigated. Calvin Miller was the one that pulled the trigger and everyone else got ten to twenty to fifteen years and Calvin Miller, who thought this is his way out of the penitentiary ended up getting another twenty year sentence on top of his already murder conviction he

was doing there. The trial was just a real interesting drama, having these guys come in and testified with each other, and the defense traint tried to make some stific issues about whether it was nine o'clock or ten o'clock, or whether he had a blue hat on or a red hat. But in the end, after eleven years, justice was got served for Natasha and Dennis. Beside stories that JD was raised by his grandparents, his grandparents came to the trial.

I haven't ever mentioned his name, and I won't do that to make sure that he stays anonymous in this Who knows how he's doing now, But at that time he was a thirteen year old, well adjusted boy, lived with grandma and grandpa. But he always had the memory of this case with him.

selling her body to make in me. She found an abandoned house that she set up shopping and she met a guy named Kevin Tucker. And Kevin Tucker was worked at a factory, had a great job in Kansas City. Catherine was white, Kevin Tucker was black. But Kevin Tucker a great job and he hurt his back and he got painkills for his back and would help his pain. His insurance ran out, he couldn't afford it, so he started He's another drug and he got hooked on heroin

and that's how he met Catherine. She was his heroin seller. So Kevin Tucker, who came from a great job doing nothing wrong, becomes dependent on drugs and becomes a drug dealer, a drug user. But he gets with Catherine and they become in a relationship and they're living in abandoned house that they've fixed up, and Catherine is selling drugs sometimes with Kevin. Maybe is a relationship. Not so sure. But there was one person and one customer that Catherine always

worried about coming over and Kevin did also. And his name was Chester James.

became a worse criminal. In the sixties and civil rights movement, Chester was always picked up for violence against African Americans. The police department knew him well. When he went back to the senitentiary, he helped raise the membership of the KKK. He became joined with the Haryan Brotherhood, which is a notorious white suprentice gang, and he fit in very well and he rose to a level in there whereas he

started off as no one. After his third or four times of penitentiary, he became very large of the anti black group movement and was very outspoken of how he felt that way. So he knew Catherine Brown. He called her Star or Cat, and he did not like that she was living with and had a relationship with a black guy.

the master manipulator. And Chester knew within days of meeting her that he could take advantage of Margaret Fowler, and he did and Margaret and Chester started a relationship with Margaret Fowler of asking her and having her do anything that he wanted her to do it. And Margaret was thankful to be with Chester for some silly reason. But Margaret would do anything. I mean, she was no beauty herself.

Chester was no beauty himself. But they would spend a lot of time together and they had an odd relationship with each other. And Chester would tell Margaret about Catherine, and Margaret didn't like Catherine. Margaret was jealous of Katherine. Why would you worry about? Chester would tell Margaret how he was mad that Catherine was with Kevin Tucker, with a black guy.

Was mad and there was no love lost between the two of them, and Kevin always had a gun in the sofa, and at this time Catherine threw Chester out Catherine, for Chester was Catherine's oldest customer, so she would sell them the drugs, but she would also want him to leave. He was talking her in the kitchen and he grabbed her leg and told her how stupid she was for a white girl to be dating a black guy, and Catherine pulled his hand away from her leg, but Chester

persisted to touching her. And Kevin didn't like his girlfriend being alone, and even before he heard Chester throwing around the N word, he said, you need to get out of here. I've had it, and Chester said, watch how he's speak to me, boy, and Kevin went back down and sat down and Chester left. They they didn't like each other. Chester didn't like the fact that he had confronted him. So it was a few days later. It's a cold February Kansas City. Kevin's sitting at the couch.

He's got his shoes on, but he's wrapped in a blanket to keep warm. He's watching TV. The doorbell rings. Captain goes up the door and from outside it's Chester, he says, and Kevin grimace. He's oh shit, it's been days since Chester had been over here. And Kevin reaches in to get his gun and Catherine says, no, stop, don't do that. Let's not start anything. So Catherine foun on the couch and said come on in, and Chester

walked in. So usually Chester would immediately go in the kitchen to do the drug business with Catherine, but not this time. Before Chester left, he said, I ain't done with you yet, boy, But this time he walked in and walked straight to the living room. He stopped and stood between the TV and Kevin. He stared right at Kevin, and Kevin stared right back. No one said a word.

Chester James, all of his rage, his hate for black people, his madness that Kevin would stand up for him, pulled a gun out of his pocket, pointed to Kevin, and before Kevin could react, Chester fired a bullet into Kevin's chest and Kevin slumped over immediately. Katherin didn't know what was going on. She went to the corner and she thought she's next with her dog, and Chester was in shot Kevin Tucker three more times, and Katherine knew he

had more bullets and that she was next. Chester did say a word, didn't acknowledge Katherine, stuck his gun in the back of his pants, grabbed the comforter around Kevin Tucker's body and pulled him off the couch. He took the gun out of Kevin's pants, He pulled his shoes off, ripped off the neck with that Kevin had around his neck, and pulled out a set of keys out of Kevin's pockets, grabbed his feet, pulled off the couch, untied his shoes

or was untied. She who his shoes wereun tied, and eight fell off and he wrapped it up in the blanket. And only then did Chester James finally speak. He turned over to Catherine and said, you're gonna help me, and she screamed, and he grabbed her and with both guns inside his coat, pockets. He slid down the wall and sat next to Catherine and gathered in his arm arms

and she thought she was dead. Her dog, Brandy came over and growled at Chester and might have been the only thing that saved her, but Kathrick could smell the liquor from his breath as Chester tried to calm her down and say he wasn't going to kill her, but she had to swear that she wouldn't tell anyone. So

Chester said I'll be back later and left. Trying to make a long story short, Chester ran out and got into his buddy, Margaret Fowler's car, and left Catherine as any prudent person would who witnessed the cold blooded murder left also. A couple of days later, Chester told his seventeen year old son that hey, I got a truck for you. If you've come with me and help me with this truck, I'll let you have a truck. So Margaret Fowler, who would do all of Chester's errands, drove

them over to the house. Chester and his son walked around the house and walked through, knocked on the door and nothing was there. What had happened before of this is that he didn't see any anybody inside the house. Is that Chester had actually wrapped Kevin Tucker in a blanket, pulled him out the back, down the steps into a crawl space, and shoved his body dropping down each of the steps into the basement and left in there for

no one to know. So later he's with the sun saying that he's got this truck for him, and some doesn't see any truck and walks around back and sees a blood trail, and then Chester tells him what's going on. Tell this guy got a fight with me. I had to do this. You have to help me. Chester finds a bloody axe on the side of the yard and they have to decide what to do with the body. And the brainy act that Chester James was. He decided that if they removed his head in his hands, they

couldn't identify us by his face. They could identify by his fingerprints. But he forced his son to help him. As they dismembered Kevin Tucker's body, they cut off his head, they cut off his hand, They put him in a plastic bag. They decided then they were going to take the body to a car washer in the river, and they took Kevin Tucker's body up the stairs out of

the tall space, and they must have heard something. A neighbor or somebody must have said something, but they decided to throw his body over the fence and they ran with the head and hands in the bag and jumped back in Margaret Fowler's car. They went and dumped their head and hands in a trash bag to find out what day. They dumped it on the Can'try Police department and searched the entire I think we had forty officers and technicians out there searching border and never recovered Kevin

Tucker's head in hand. Fast forward through the investigation. The cops a couple of weeks find at this member body. They don't know who it is except for a partial palm print, and they identify it as Kevin Tucker. They find out Kevin Tucker had known Catherine Brown and had lived in that area, and they talked to Captain Brown. They found her here. I don't know any about anything, as most criminals do. They kept talking to him. Finally,

the named Chester James kept coming up. They talked to Captain Brown again and she said, yes, here's what happened. And before they could get her in become testify. She called the detective and Chester James was at her new apartment and Chester James was there to kill her and her dog Brandy that had comforted her before when Kevin Tucker shot attacked Chester and bit him on the hand

and Catherine got away. Now, at that day they arrested Chester James for the homicide of Kevin Tucker and for the attempted robbery of Catherine Brown.

but definitely the dimberment of the body happened. And so they did some great detective work and they finally tracked down by the power and Margaret Fowler gave a statement to the police department and said, here's what happened. I drove him there. I don't know what he's doing. He came back and he had this, and so she gave her statement, and they had talked to the son, and the son gave a statement also, he said, here's what happened. I did this. I didn't know, but I had to

help my dad. It was scare to him. So then in any trial it comes to the point of whatever the real facts are, that don't mean anything, and she can explain him to the jury. And so I was faced with this motley crew of people to prosecute Chester James. My star witness is Catherine Brown. Since then she has been arrested in doing a federal charge and serving time in Houston, Texas. About to have the US Marshall's flat her back for testimony. She comes in in an orange

jump soup, tells the story, tells what happened. The other witnesses I need are Margaret Fowler and Chester James no excuse me at Chester's son. And so Margaret Fellay had given a great statement to the police, but you know, I have to have her give that same statement on the witness stands. And she was flaky, and she danced around the every question and tried to be evasive as possible. She was staring at Chester. But I finally got her to admit some things that I got to actually put

her statement in evidence. And after that, we knew that Chester wasn't happy. She had always visiting Chester in jail every single day, and we knew that she was manipulated, and we knew that she could not get away from Chester and would do anything about trying to help him. So we closed for that day. And you know, when you're in the middle of a trial, you try and wrap up the case. Majority goes some but you spend some more time getting ready for the next day of trial.

And we left that day kind of late at night. I told the other prosecutor I was proscuting with I'll see you later, and I walked in my car. And as I walked in my car, I had a pretty good parking spot wasn't too far away, but it was getting late, it was getting dark, and I was walking to my car. I noticed from a distance someone was

leaning against my car, and I wasn't too alarmed. I didn't really give it too much of thought, and there was a lot of homeless people downtown Campa City, but surprised that they got close to my car that I recognized the person leaning against my car and I knew that person shouldn't be there. There are some parking lot lights there and it was Margaret Fowler. And maybe I should have been more worried and of what Margaret Fowler was going to do there, But walked up to Margaret

and didn't even think of her as a threat. I thought her just as a liar and a flake. But then it hit me, you know, Chester James did to manipulated this woman to do incredible things for him for years, and she just lied on the stand and takes perjury charges. So I didn't know what she's up to, you know, was she there for no good or what was going on? So one thing I knew is that she shouldn't be there.

And I immediately said, Margaret, you know you shouldn't be here, and she said to me, Chester has a message for you. He wants me to give it to you. And I quickly realized that I probably ought to be taking this little more seriously. And I had second thoughts about whether Margaret was a threat, and I noticed she kept one hand in her pocket, so I immediately thought, what should I dude? Did Chester want the message to be a

bullet or did Chester want to tell me something? Either way, if he shot me, that's not good, or if she's there something else, I could get a mistrial. And so with as stern as I could be, I said, Margaret, whatever you want to say or do you need to think about it real hard. And I know you're loyal to Chester, but you need to realize Chester's going away for a long time and you're not to go home in a few days. Chess is going to be out of your life forever. Do not do anything stupid right now.

And I never found out what message he had for me, but Margaret looked at her feet, she mumbled something, never took her hand out of her pocket, and walked away. So I got in my car and got the hell out of there, not really ever understanding whether Margaret was there to harm me or what. But Margaret had a message in Chester. I pulled the jail records and she had seen him right before, she's seen him to see me,

and saw him right after. But I never know what she wanted it, but the that thing I was happy about. We didn't have to have a mistrial. So the next day we started with last witness, which was Chester Sun.

ready to get married. I met with Vincent and his piance and her parents which were great people, and they were supportive of him, Like Vincy had to testify. I know you can rock in a hard place. Vincon was getting ready to go to the military, and I had compassion for him and I didn't want to charge him to crime. I wanted him to testify and be done with it for his life, and so I had several meetings with him. I knew he was had a hard time with it, but he had to take the stand.

So in my opening statement, I told the jury, here's all the witnesses you're here from and this is what they're going to say. And so my last witness was Vincent. And as I had told the jury, you're going to hear from the sun. And you know, charal work is

fluid and time to make quick decisions. And when I got Vincent on the stand, I realized how fluid I needed to be, because I put him on the stand and I asked him his name, and he said Densive James, and I asked him his relations Chester James, which he said as his father. But the next thing I asked him about any events the late of Captain Bounce BrownHouse sort of piss them in the right and he would

not testify, and I didn't see it coming. As a prosecutor, if you know someone witness is going to do that, you should not put him on the stands just it's basically unethical because the jury hears something they shouldn't and

I didn't know it. And what I needed to do figure out there is I asked him some more questions and risk him his trial or do I tried some innocent questions to see if he would answer, or what's going on with so you know, sometimes changing strategies mid trial is like a quarterback having to call a new player an audible at the scrimmage line, and I've had seconds to figure out what to do about that. So I treaded lightly. If I knew he's a young man, he's in the worst position of his life and was

told in many different directions, so he's unpredictable. So but I knew I'd talked to him, so I asked him a couple more questions and he said, I'm not going to talk to you, and the defense journey objected and asked we come forward. I looked around and I saw Chester sitting at the at the council table, just grinn and had his son, and I knew there's the mastermind

behind Vincent's plan to do this. So we approached the judge and the defense attorney, you know, rightfully makes the objector hey wait a second, judge, this is purely terrible. Should get a this trial. He called this kid up here and he said he's going to talk about the trial and he's not. He's a certa of stiff. He should never understand. And I made my please to the judge. I Judge, I didn't know it. I never knows him

to do this. This is news to the state and that whole argument, and the judge agreed that it was not on this trial. But she didn't instruct the jury that they would not take any account to him being on the stand he calls his witness or not and like they say, you can't unring that bell. I had told the jury what he would say an opening statement. The jury, when I looked at them, they knew it.

They knew what had happened here. They could tell that Vincent was in her hard place and that he got a decision, and they look between Vincent and Chester and they got it. We closed at inclosing, we've made the argument and I realized, in a good trial attorney to make sure that never the jury never sees he's flustered. So I did my best to make sure they didn't see me fluster with Vincent at all. And the jury came back rather quickly with a conviction, and Chester was convicted.

Later we had the sentencing, and at sentencing, the defense trying to talk about what a tough life he had had and he shouldn't be sentenced to this much time, and blah blah blah. The jury had recommended sixty years, and the judge gave Chester James sixty years plus ten in prison, and Chester walked out in shackles. He said to me, I ain't done with you yet, boy, and I just smiled at him and said, Chester, I'll be I don't know Chester still in prison. I'm assuming he's

dead by now. He would have been close to eighty five by now. One interesting thing is that after we got done there, I had to decide what to do with Finsin. And I'd explained to him the situation of having to testify and there's consequences that he didn't and he didn't, so I had a little ethical issue what to do with it. And I decided that there has to be consequences, so I charged him with abandonment of a corpse, which was one of the times it's ever

been charged in the state of Missouri. It's the crime that if you know of a dead body and you have a relationship to it, you have to report it, and if you don't, that's a crime. And just real briefly, it's interesting that the type of crime was argued, and our Supreme Court brought up the case of Huckleberry Finn. If you remember the story of Huckleberry Finn, huck Finn and Jim find a dead body and they don't know what to do with it and they leave, and the

Supreme Court said, well, here's the deal. Hawk and Jim didn't know that body, so that's not a crime. The prime is when you have some sort of relationship. Well, Vincent James had a relationship. He actually just membered his body. He had a relationship to report it. So I charged

him with the felony. And when it came to time to be convicted and sentencing, all my prosecutor friends said I should have for penitentiary time, and I decided to offer probation and he got probation and hopefully he completed his probation and he gave him a suspended division and sentence, which we inside a conviction. And the last I heard he was going into the military and everything was going

to be great in his life. I decided I shouldn't push for prison time that I wanted him to understand even though he's between a rock and a hard place, there were consequences to get understand and basically saying few to the state and not testifying. So the story of Chester James, the best Father of the decade is told.

And Ruth's younger sister was Dorothy. So tell us the living arrangement that they had and sort of what kind of place Ruth sort of had in her apartment there and sort of how she conducted herself. And again Auntie Ruth, how she was known in the neighborhood.

where Dorothy Hayes and Ruth Hayes lived. We had talked about Ruth had been widowed and lived with her sister, but it was just the place that everyone came into all the time. So she had gained the nickname of Anti Ruth over the years because she was so kind at nursery nature. She would always stop whatever she's doing for a visitor to talk to them, something to eat or drink, or even a loan of money, or just to talk. And so the neighborhood kids would go by there,

people would stop buy and have coffee with her. And you know, Ruth was older, and she'd been in the neighborhood when it was a very nice neighborhood to now when it was a crime ridden neighborhood. But she still rarely locked her doors and still let people walk in with being unannounced and grab a coke, or he's the bathroom, or loans some money. So it was just Ruth Taylor was just one of these people that everyone loved.

anywhere to use the restroom. So Anthony Hill would had been to Aunt Ruth's house enough time to know that if you went in there, you could use the restroom. So this guy had been in and out of prison and a lot of his crimes were assaults assaults on women. But of course Aunt Ruthie didn't know that, and if she would have known it, she wouldn't have cared. She was just that type of person. So Ruth was sitting having coffee with her neighbor Sabrina, and people would come

in and out, and one time James Anthony Hill. Some of them as James, so someone was Anthony, but he came in, knocked the door into the residence, went to the bathroom, knew, wiped his feet and left. It was cold outside and ruthe said, you sure you can use the bathroom, and just wasn't uncommon people stopped buying and just use the bathroom because people walking in they didn't

have a place to use it. So Ruth had told Anthony that he could go and that Hill they could go in there whenever he wanted, so he came in and came out. Ruth had been there having coffee Sabrina. Her sister Dorothy had been in the other room watching TV and then went to sleep. And to fast forward the story, Anthony Hill came in to use the restume a second time and asked for some money, and Ruth said,

I just don't have any money today. I'm sorry about that, and he had left and then finally came back and was frustrated. He didn't like the fact that Sabrino was still there having coffee with Ann Ruth, and he was still mad that he didn't get any money from Aunt Ruth. So this time he didn't just go to the bathroom. He kind of stood around there and lingered. But Sabrina had to leave, so Sabrina left. She walked up the door, left Ruth alone with Hill. She never thought of Ruth

being unsafe and Aunt Ruth didn't really ei her. So Ruth told Anthony, who was welcome to stay as long as he did stay warmed his cold out there. His Aunt Albanul to be home soon because he was saanning he couldn't get in there and went all ro out

of business. Aunt Ruth went through her room and changed from her day close into her nightgown and came back out and went out and said the birds her last piece of corn bread from her lunch, as she always did, and she walked back into the living room and heard

Anthony go into the bathroom. When he came back out, the first thing she noticed that his pants runs it and a ply way to attempt to tell him, hey, you forgot it, she says, he hey, sip her pants open, And before he could say anything, Anthony He'll violently grabbed her arm and twisted it and he said, don't say word and Ruthie, or I'll kill you. They pushed Ruth

back up quickly toward the table. Ruth thought her legs were gonna snap and grabbed her by the throat, wrapped his hands around her throat, and Ruth couldn't even yell for her sister, who was in the other room. He was choking her against the table and Ruth couldn't do anything. She's frail and she's weak, and she doesn't know what to do. And then, in a fight for life mode, she grabs his testacles and squeezes as hard as she can. Well,

she's an elderly woman. She can't squeeze that much, but it was enough for him to release his grip from her. He was then even more mad. He grabbed a heavy glass bowl that sat on Ruth's tailor for decades. Sometimes it's held candies, sometimes it's a fruit bowl or full of nuts, and it was empty now and he saw out of the weapon, and he grabbed that glass bowl and raised the high above Ruth's head and brought it down and struck her head with a force that shattered

the glass bowl. So fast forward about the story. Ruth Hill was sexual assaulted that night and left in blood and urine on that kitchen floor, and James Anthony Hill left. Her niece came and found her. The police were called. Ruth was in a coma. They had to do sexual assault things. Ruth didn't want to even admit choose a sexual assault victim, and it was one of the worst things that happened in that neighborhood.

you some cookies and later some stew. So it's a very, very fascinating. We just touched on again one of the most profound stories of the five that you cover in this incredible collection. I want to thank you for coming on and talking about His name was Murder, Real Kansas City Crime Stories from the Prosecutor. So, Phil, do you have a website or a Facebook page for this for people that might want to contact you or.

my website. It's a It's been a great pleasure writing the book and then talking about my book and giving presentation. So I really appreciate you having me on here to talk more about it.

his name was murder. It's been an absolute pleasure. And like I say, the story with Aunt Ruthie, it's just incredible, the exchange that you have with her on trial the seventy eight year a woman that was violated in her own home, left for dead, like you say, in a puddle of her own blood and urine, and then somehow which there is some happy ending in this and just an incredible touching story and part of this really really exciting book Real Kansas City Crime Stories from the Prosecutor.

Thank you very much, Phil for coming on and talking about this. If you have a great evening, hope to talk to you again soon.