A string of witnesses testified Tuesday in Lyon County District Court in the trial of a man accused of causing the death of 18-year-old Beau Arndt of Americus.
Theron Thomas Kent of Topeka is charged with involuntary manslaughter and also with several hunting violations.
Kent allegedly fired a rifle from a roadway onto property where Arndt and two friends, Derek Jackson and Tom Glass, were lying in individual goose blinds and surrounded by goose decoys in a field just north of the intersection of Roads 310 and D.
Kent’s trial started Monday with jury selection in Chief Judge Merlin Wheeler’s courtroom in Lyon County District Court. Testimony began Tuesday morning, after opening statements from Assistant County Attorney Rick Buck and Defense Attorney Don Hoffman of Topeka.
The prosecution alleges that a bullet from Kent’s rifle struck Arndt’s chest. He died from the wound at the scene.
Law enforcement, dispatchers, a paramedic, a deputy coroner, and first responders all testified Tuesday about their roles in responding to a 911 call requesting help for a young man who had been shot.
During the afternoon, a first responder described how he helped Lyon County Deputy Pat Stevenson perform CPR on the victim until ambulance personnel arrived. Arndt did not respond to their efforts.
Richard Gould, a firefighter/paramedic in Emporia testified next, saying he was on duty on Dec. 15 when the call of the shooting came in. Gould said the call came in as a 19-year-old male who had been shot in the chest.
Gould testified that the call came in around 8:30 a.m. and the ambulance arrived on scene around 8:58 a.m. The field where Arndt was located was muddy, so the ambulance couldn’t be driven into it.
The ambulance crew was driven in a pickup truck to Arndt, who had been pulled from the goose blind and was lying in the field.
Once paramedics arrived on scene, CPR was stopped to check for a pulse. Gould said there was a large amount of blood, and he did not find an exit wound on Arndt.
He was loaded onto a spine board and into a truck where he was taken to the ambulance. There, an autopulse belt was placed on Arndt. An autopulse is a automatic CPR band that does compressions in lieu of manual CPR, Gould said.
Dr. Marshall Havenhill II, a deputy in the coroner’s office, also testified Tuesday afternoon.
He testified that when he arrived on scene he went to the ambulance where Arndt’s body had been taken. He said he saw a wound 2 cm above the nipple and just to the right of the sternum. He could not find an exit wound. Havenhill said the time of death used was 9:20 a.m. because that was the time the electrocardiogram read. There was no heart activity. Havenhill then told the EMTs and law enforcement that an autopsy would be required.
The testimony Tuesday was preceded by opening statements from Lyon County Assistant County Attorney Rick Buck and defense attorney Don Hoffman of Topeka.
Buck set the scene of the morning of Dec. 15, 2008.
Arndt, a college freshman, and his friends had permission to set up their duck blinds and decoys on the property of Gary Jensen, just west of the intersection of Roads 310 and D.
As they lay in their individual goose blinds, Jackson heard Arndt yell “more than once” and Glass heard gunfire and at first thought that one of the young men had shot at geese, Buck said. Both emerged from their blinds and, realizing none of them had fired, went to Arndt’s blind to make sure he was all right.
“They found him lying there on his back, his eyes wide open, gasping for breath, making sort of a gurgling sound and a small amount of blood on his chest,” Buck said.
The coroner’s examination later showed that a gunshot had gone into the chest and struck the heart, liver, kidney and had fragmented in an area around the hip, Buck said.
The bullet fragment and Kent’s .257-caliber rifle were sent to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for analysis. However, firearms examiner David Wright said that the bullet was too fragmented to meet KBI criteria.
“But he found more matching characteristics than would have been” expected, Buck said. “He is confident that it did come from that gun.”
Buck said that evidence will show that Kent told investigating officers that he saw a coyote and took his gun from the truck.
“(He) opened his door, stood in the roadway, placed the gun on the door and fired a shot, he said, at a coyote,” Buck said. “The state maintains that shot ... killed Beau Arndt.”
The State of Kansas will ask the jury to find Kent guilty of involuntary manslaughter and hunting and fishing law violations, Buck said.
Defense attorney Hoffman said he will show that Kent did not kill Beau Arndt. He said that a “pre-eminent expert in ballistics” would testify that the bullet fragments removed from Arndt were not from Kent’s rifle.
He said that “the evidence will show that there were any number of individuals in the area who were not only hunting but were in possession of rifles of this type with the ability to launch the very type of projectile that wound up in this young man’s body.”
Hoffman accused law enforcement of conducting a “cursory” investigation in the case because it had committed itself to Kent as the suspect.
Hoffman asked Chief Judge Merlin Wheeler, after morning recess, to sequester witnesses because some gave conflicting reports and might be influenced by hearing testimony from others.
Wheeler granted the request and cautioned witnesses not to discuss their testimony with other witnesses. No requests for exemption were made by either the defense or prosecution.
Deputy Pat Stevenson testified Tuesday morning that he had been first to arrive at the scene of the shooting and had performed chest compressions on Arndt for 15 to 20 minutes and did not see any signs of breathing or heart rate at any time.
He said that Randy Edmunds, a first responder from the Allen-Admire district, arrived later and assisted with the CPR.
Because of the condition of the field, the ambulance could not reach Arndt and emergency medical technicians were brought to the blind area by pickup truck. Arndt later was loaded into the back of the patrol truck and taken to the ambulance.
Lyon County Detective Travis Mishler testified during the morning session about his role as investigator in the case.
He said that a heavy snow was falling and the wind was blowing when he arrived at Roads D and 310, and that Arndt’s body already had been loaded into the back of the ambulance.
Mishler, who also attended the autopsy, brought in 19 photographs taken during the investigation. All but two were admitted as evidence during his testimony.
During the morning, the jury also heard a 22-minute recording of the 911 call placed about 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 15, 2007.
On the tape, the voices of Jackson and Glass are heard as they try to assist and then resuscitate Arndt.
A voice on the tape said that Arndt was breathing at that time; later, a voice said that Arndt had died. Both men performed CPR until help arrived.