Hes gonna be in prison for a short time.
An 80-year-old Missouri businessman man who lost a nearly $6million lawsuit to a Kansas City attorney has been charged with murdering the lawyer after inadvertently confessing.
David Jungerman is charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of 39-year-old Tom Pickert.
The personal injury attorney and married father-of-two was found dead on the front porch of his family’s Brookside home on the morning of October 25, 2017, a day after Jungerman was served with property liens to pay the seven-figure judgment.
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Case closed: David Jungerman, 80 (left), has been charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of 39-year-old lawyer Tom Pickert (right)
Pickers was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head outside him family’s home in Brookside, Missouri, a day after Jungerman was served with property liens
A probable cause affidavit alleges that Jungerman accidentally recorded himself saying he killed Pickert. Investigators allege he failed to turn off a recorder he was using during a court hearing in Vernon County.
Pickert, who worked for Fowler Pickert Eisenmenger LLC, had represented a homeless man who was shot by Jungerman 2012, after Jungerman encountered men in a building associated with his baby-furniture business. Jungerman said the men were stealing copper and that he acted in self-defense.
He wasn’t criminally charged in those shootings, but he was later sued in civil court. A jury in August 2017 sided with the homeless man, who lost part of his leg in the shooting, awarding $5.75million. Jungerman had said he planned to appeal.
According to the court documents, Pickert told two people that after the verdict, Jungerman came up to him in an aggressive manner and 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.’
Pickert was shot two months later, after returning home from walking his two sons to school.
Investigators allege Jungerman, who also is a farmer, shot Pickert with a .17-caliber firearm typically used by farmers and ranchers to kill pests, according to court documents.
Witnesses said the shooter, described as an elderly man with grey hair, sped away from the scene in a white 1997 Chevrolet van registered to Jungerman. Police interviewed the elderly man but initially cleared him as a suspect in the killing.
‘We are grieving,’ said Pickert’s widow, palliative care doctor Emily Riegel. ‘We are desperately trying to find our way forward.”
Jungerman, who lives in Raytown, was in custody at the Jackson County jail in connection to an unrelated shooting when the charges were announced.
Emily Riegel (right) was the one who found her husband dead on the front porch of their home after hearing a gunshot
He was being held without bond in a March 8 shooting incident in which he is accused of a shooting at a man he suspected of stealing 780lbs of iron pipe from his building.
A witness told police that he had a conversation with Jungerman in March, during which the suspect allegedly stated he had killed a lawyer with a gun and gotten away with it. He did it because the lawyer stole his money.
When the murder charge was announced, Jungerman was already in jail in connection to a March 8 shooting incident in which he is accused of a shooting at a suspect thief
Police recently executed search warrants at the defendant’s home and business. At his business, they found a printout from the Jackson County property tax database. It showed the victim’s home address. Another document indicated that Jungerman had more than $33million in assets.
An Olympus audio recorder with…