True Justice

By Ella Huddleston

Five firefighters took off running for cover behind the fire engine and the other gold/black trailer, a few closed their eyes as they ran blindly into the darkness with flames chasing behind them saying one prayer that seems to come to mind at a time like this.... Our Father Who...

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477299692

Ella Huddleston

I started writing True Justice because I felt the truth was being twisted or overlooked through the years since the explosion in November 29, 1988. I have lived in the Kansas City, Missouri area all my life except for a few years in the 90's. My Grandpa on my father's side and his wife moved to west bottoms in Kansas City in 1910 where they raised three boys who spent their whole life in Kansas City. I have three dogs; I enjoy doing real stain glass and writing. I do not know the six firefighters and their families nor the five suspects and their families. This book is just what I saw and my view. That is it.

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TRUE

JUSTICE

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Ella Hutton Huddleston

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2013 by Ella Hutton Huddleston. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/19/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9971-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9970-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9969-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012923643

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

About The Author

Based On A True Story

*My family or I knew the victims or the suspects or their families & still don’t.

*Joel & Sondra: I’m sorry we lost touch (KCMO)

*Joel from Yale College (1995) Thanks for working with us at the homeless center in writing down our thoughts.

*M.W.D. Thank you for making a (APP).

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

PROLOGUE

Kansas City, Missouri

Spring 1997

Two tan doors in the lower west part of the Federal Building was being pulled open by two Federal Court House Guards, swinging both doors wide to let four men and a woman step through. The men along with the woman was dressed in bright orange overalls, each was wearing bullet prove black vest. With their hands handcuffed and chained in front of them with another chain going through a round loop and hook at their waist, this chain went down the link of their legs to hook both their ankles together that was only inches apart making their walking slow and uneven as they came through the heavy doors. As they walked out to a platform that lead to a flight of steps then to a waiting police van to take them back to the City jail. The five suspects had their heads down watching where they stepped so not to stumble as they came out the doors into the afternoon sunlight, when each did look up it was to meet blinding flashes from hand held cameras going off in their eyes, their walking became unbalance from the guards pulling them pass the line of reporters that was pushing at them asking questions all at the same time trying to talk louder then the other reporters their mikes being extended out as far as they could reach them to get any kind of comment from the five suspects. Around the reporters and camera men from different television stations local and nationwide were the families and friends of both the victims and suspects each standing side by side words unspoken, tears wiped away with the back of their hands, their faces full of emotions from pain and hate with bitter words being held off till a later time. The first man in line of the five prisoners who was the older uncle of the main suspect who brought up the end of the line heard the two double doors close behind them firmly feeling his life had closed just as firmly. He raised his face and looked to the reporters and cameras flashing faster at them as he spoke. You got the wrong people we didn’t do it! He cried out, a guard took hold of him pulling him closer leading him down to the first step and making him move faster down the six remaining cement steps to the side walk then to the curb were the City jail van waited making sure he could not speak out again before stepping up on to the bumper of the back of the van then being directed threw the double doors that had been open by the police officer driving the van, he was pointed to go to the front roll of the three seats in the van lined up behind each other to the back of the van’s double doors. When the last of the five suspects was loaded in the van a guard climbed in and sat in the last seat in the back, while the driver shut and locked the van doors before heading to the driver’s side of the van and getting in. Reporters and camera men stilled pushed around the van as it drove away from the curb. The four men and one woman was now convicted prisoners who had been on trail for a explosion that took place on a highway construction site in the south part of Kansas City, Missouri in the early morning hours of November 29, 1988, that killed six fire fighters nine years earlier. A Federal Court Judge would hand down their sentences in a few months.

Kansas City, Missouri

July 1997

To the five convicted suspects waiting for the Federal Judge to decide what their sentence would be was hard enough, but to know their families and friends was getting back lash of this nightmare just left them shaking their heads at the thought. To the six firefighters families and friends it was a nightmare hanging around their necks for nine years, finely justice would be served to the five suspects responsible for killing their love ones who were only doing their job. By animals that crawled out from under a rock on a cold morning November 29, 1988 struck pain in their hearts then crawled back under that rock; now the six firefighters could rest in peace because a Federal Judge gave the killers life in prison without parole.

Kansas City, Missouri

February 2004

The Bruce Watkins Highway as took the place of Seventy-One Highway merging and starting at Seventy-Fifth Street. The project has been done over two years running to and ending near Eleventh Street in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. A memorial to the six fire fighters sits along the outer road near Eighty-Seventh Street about a mile to the north where the six firefighters were killed in the construction site off the side road on the east side of Seventy-One Highway north.

Kansas City, Missouri

January 2010

In the last two years this case has been in the news, a reporter with the Kansas City Star had been approached by witness who testified in the case against the five suspects charged with the deaths of the six firefighters on November 29, 1988 that they had fabricated their stories with inaccurate information. They felt they had no choice at the time they stated to the reporter.

Kansas City, Missouri

April 23, 2012

The Kansas City Star had got the ball rolling in this case that got a Federal Judge and a Missouri Congressman to sign for a new appeal.

Kansas City, Missouri

November 16, 2012

Evidence has pointed away from the five suspects at different times these last two years, with the suspects attorneys asking for new grand jury to re-investigate. But a U.S. Justice Department investigation said it did not exonerate the five who were convicted. (As of now one of the suspects has died in prison.) Plus September of this year a warning was put out saying the Justice Department would look for more people to join the ones they have if the case has to be reopened.

November 29, 1988

South Kansas City, Missouri

Fire Station

1:50 A.M.

Patrick Braun leaned his left shoulder into the window frame, sighing he moved into a more relax position. Reaching out he pulled down a rust color blade of the blinds covering the large window he was standing by looking out from the second floor of the fire station he was working at that morning. The station sat on the north side of Bannister Road. He went to open the blade only a crack so not to let too much artificial street light shine in and disturb the other eight men sleeping in the darken room behind him. Patrick Braun was forty-four, six two and a hundred and sixty pounds, he liked to wear his sandy hair cut short around his ears not touching any of his shirt collars. He liked to wear earth tone colors around his home when he wasn’t working, he loved his private life and he had been married to his high school sweetheart Arlene Huntley for six years last month. Arlene and he had three lovely girls, tongue in cheek he knew any proud father thought the same as he did about their children. Patrick shook his head and leaned more of his shoulder into the window frame as he adjusted his eyes to look out into the darkness beyond where he stood. He felt his life was as good as a life could get, he owned his home, he had a family, children and friends and co-workers who respected him and he respected them in return. Patrick was thinking about what his wife and him had been discussing these last few weeks in buying a larger house in the same area they lived in called Ruskin Heights (or tornado alley because a tornado tore up a large part of Ruskin area to Grandview, Missouri in the Nineteen-Fifty’s) The house they had now was only two bedrooms and five of them were living there. But finding a new home was going to be harder these days because of how the Hickman Mills area has grown and was still growing. Bannister’s Road itself was the life line of the south part of the Kansas City, Missouri Bannister Road going east turned into Coburn Road,; when going west into Kansas turning into Ninety-fifth Street ending just on the other side of Overland Park, Kansas just past a large inside mall. New highways was being and already constructed (Four-Thirty-Five west/east, then connected with Sixty-Nine north/south, Four-Thirty-Five north/south in Kansas) connecting large open areas together around the city. The fire station sat on the corner of Hillcrest & Bannister Road on the north side of Bannister Road, The large window Patrick was looking out over looked onto Bannister Road that was a two lane street that in five years was to be a four lane with a center turning lane. Patrick couldn’t really picture all the changes planned for the Hickman Mills area, a shopping strip sat lower then Bannister Road, with Hillcrest Road running down a incline to pass it, on the east side of Hillcrest road along Bannister Road to Blue Ridge Road that ran north and south homes sat on both sides of them. But behind the fire station in the last few years homes had been taken out for commercial properties to eight-seventh street, Going west on Bannister Road was apartment complexes mixed with commercial properties crossing over Four-Thirty-Five north/south to incline down over rail road tracks (that would go dead in a few years) to cross with Hickman Mills Drive (old Seventy-One Highways north/south). (Hickman Mill Drive on the south side of Bannister Road would be taken out to reconnect about a mile more to the south to an outer road that would loop back to Bannister Road the rest of Hickman Mills Drive would continue south ending past Longview Road running into Seventy-One Highway north. Bannister Road/ Hickman Mills Drive going south had a local tavern sitting on the west side, about hundred yards down on the east side of Hickman Mills Drive was a large metal tan country bar with no windows that had a creek running along the embankment below going under the rail road tracks north/south to cross under Bannister Road. Around both the tavern/bar was open lots for parking, across the country bar was another side road on the west of Hickman Mills Drive called Woodfield Drive that inclined up to level out connecting with Spruce Street to loop to dead end into brush area to end over looking Bannister Road to the north, off a cliff drop, another half mile going south on Hickman Mills Drive on the west side was Spruce Street that inclined up pass a single home to loop to a dead end going north on the east side of the new Seventy-One Highway north bound, it stopped right pass the house going into a grass field to start again connecting where Woodfield Drive came from the east to end west where Spruce Street started again still going north. (Both these streets would be gone in years to come, with no homes just open weeded ground.)Hickman Mills continue pass the north side of Bannister Road with a ramp hooking up with the new Seventy-One highway (north bound) or you could stay on Hickman Mills that passed by cross roads of Blue River Road, then eighty-seventh street that would let you turn back around on to new Seventy-One south highway on the west side Hickman Mills Drive was a grass medium that separated it from new Seventy-One north highway (a grass medium separated both new Seventy-One highways north/south) that would disconnect then restart at the cross road of Blue River Road going to the two green metal bridges for both the new Seventy-One highways then both highways would end connecting back into Hickman Mills Drive (old Seventy-One highway).Then heading back into Kansas City, Missouri. (In between both highways after the two green bridges a gas/food mart sat.) On the east side of Hickman Mills Drive coming from Bannister Road before the last cross over’s (near Blue River Road on the west of Seventy South highway)was rock construction companies that had a gray dust gravel entry way. A lot of home owners complained to the city about the dynamiting the companies did daily that would crack their windows or foundations of their homes even though they lived miles from the rock quarries, any time threw a day Monday to Friday you could hear blasting going on. Patrick yawned then looked out into the dark early November morning he hadn’t seen any traffic moving up or down Bannister since he came to the window, he looked down at his wrist watch and seen it was two-fifteen in the morning. He glanced over his shoulder back into the darken room behind him to make sure he was not letting to much light in, he looked back out into the darkness in front of him, that was lighted by street light at the cross streets of Bannister and Hillcrest the area around the streets had a gloomy dirty look about them, he remember his mother saying one time when she flew back from Las Vegas entering Kansas City, Missouri sky line she thought it looked dirty no other city sky line had looked that way to her. Patrick took a second and thought of his mother she was born in the south part of Missouri in a one person town that was called Neola, Missouri she was one of six children and of them she was the only one that lived in a large city the rest lived near where they was born, His brothers and his self tried to get her to move back down near her sisters and brothers but she never wanted too; she wanted to stay close to her children and come and go as she wanted down there. Patrick strained his eyes to see if anyone was hanging around outside in the streets but the only thing he would glance moving around every so often was a stray cat roaming. Sighing he counted in his mind he had about five more hours of work but within a few hours Bannister Road traffic would start moving to start the day, but to everyone that worked or lived in the area it was normal hearing car, truck motors, horns honking and brakes being pressed to squeal almost too late to stop at the cross street crossings when the lights turned yellow to red. Just same O same O day, Patrick thought . . . He kept finding his thoughts drifting in and out of time for some reason he sure needed his two off days that started as soon as his shifted ended that morning around nine. His thoughts drifted to his father who passed away from cancer in Nineteen-Seventy-Eight picturing where he was laid to rest in South Missouri where his mother’s family was buried, he could remember his mom and dad discussing many times, with her saying ‘if he died before her she would buried him at Pleasant Grove Cemetery in Greenfield, Missouri.’ And he would return that she would be buried if she died before him at Mount Olive in Kansas City, Missouri. (His mom won.) Patrick knew he had to get his body to relax so he could get some rest because you never knew when the next emergency call would come in, he knew he would stand at this window or another thinking of his family no matter the time on any shifts he worked, closing his eyes then reopening them he seen the coolness outside meeting the warmth from inside was at the dew point before frosting over; making individual tracks three drops of moisture no bigger than a pencil head broke free of a