Jurors on Monday morning will begin deciding the fate of the Topeka man accused of killing 18-year-old Beau Arndt of Americus.
Theron Thomas Kent is charged with involuntary manslaughter, attempted unlawful taking of wildlife, hunting without permission and criminal discharge of a firearm. Arndt was goose hunting with two friends when he was killed by a single gunshot to his chest.
Prosecutors contend that Kent fired the fatal shot while illegally hunting.
Before both the state and defense rested their cases on Friday afternoon, Kent took the stand in his own defense and testimony from an expert hired by his attorney was thrown out of court.
A point that Kent’s attorney, Don Hoffman of Topeka, hit hard on Friday was whether Kent knew he killed Arndt or was told that by investigators. At issue is a statement in Lyon County Deputy Pat Stevenson’s written report about the initial interview with Kent at his Topeka business.
Arndt was killed Dec. 15 — a Saturday. Officers located Kent the following Wednesday about 11 a.m. According to Stevenson’s report, Bill Halvorsen, a Kansas Bureau of Investigation senior special agent who was asked to assist with the interview, told Kent that his shot killed Arndt. Halvorsen denied making the statement during his testimony Friday morning.
During cross-examination, Hoffman told Halvorsen that Stevenson reported that “Bill told Kent that he had shot an 18-year-old boy.”
“I did not tell him (Kent) that he was the guy that shot the young man,” Halvorsen said. “...He became very emotional, but again, it was after Mr. Kent himself concluded that he had shot the young man.”
After persistent questions comparing Stevenson’s report to Halvorsen’s testimony, Halvorsen said, “It’s Deputy Stevenson’s report, and obviously he recalls it that way. ... I don’t recall it the same way.”
Kent isn’t sure exactly what was said, either, but testified that officers convinced him he killed the younger man.
“I can’t remember the exact words, but it broke me up,” he said. “I was upset. I just felt terrible about what he was saying. I believed him because they are law enforcement. I had never been in trouble before... I interpreted that they had me and they knew I had done something wrong.”
After the interview in Topeka, which was not recorded beyond written notes, Kent came to Lyon County with investigators and went to the shooting scene, to the house where he had a flat tire, to the cabin in which his hunting party spent the night before the shooting and, finally, to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office where his interview was videotaped.
On Friday morning, jurors watched the one-hour tape.
Kent, who volunteered to the interview after talking to his attorney, matter-of-factly answered questions from officers, who made sure he understood he was not under arrest and could stop the interview at any time.
Throughout the questioning, investigators tried to piece together a timeline of the morning of Dec. 15 and determine where Kent had gone when. He told investigators that, after fixing the flat tire, he drove north. When he reached the field at Roads 310 and D, he saw a coyote standing in the field. He opened the truck’s door, took his gun from the rack and fired one shot. The coyote ran into trees to the west.
Kent said he then drove off, passing a parked white truck after he crested a hill in the road. At that point, he also saw a man standing in a field with goose decoys.
“I seen a man up on, up by the hill halfway,” Kent told officers. “He got up. He was just standing there. He didn’t wave at me. He didn’t run.
“I didn’t know anything was going on. I drove on down the road. I didn’t think nothing about it.”
Every time the questions got close to the actual shooting, Kent sounded agitated and took deep breaths, as if to calm down.
At one point, he talked about the shooting range set up at the cabin. It’s in front of a hill, Kent said, because “I know how bullets can go.
“Oh, my God.”
On Friday afternoon, the defense recalled Angela Waner, who helped the Kent and his hunting party change a flat tire before the shooting. During her testimony, Hoffman tried to refine the timeline of the morning.
On the stand, Waner estimated that the men left between 8:15 and 8:20 a.m. from her home at 2810 Road C. According to Lyon County Sheriff’s logs, the call from the field at Roads 310 and D came in at 8:23 a.m. An ambulance was dispatched to the site at 8:25 a.m. according to logs.
Waner testified that she went out at 7:55 a.m. to warm up her truck and then went about her chores. At 8 a.m. she had contact with Kent’s party.
Jurors also heard from the defense’s expert witness, John Cayton, a forensic consultant from Missouri. Cayton testified that he examined the field where the shooting happened, bullet fragments, photographs and reports.
He testified that the bullet taken from Arndt’s body did not match a test bullet fired from the gun Kent said he used that Saturday. Earlier in the trial, the state’s expert witness, a KBI scientist, testified that the bullet fragments taken from Arndt’s body were too small for any kind of conclusive results.
Not only could he not say the bullet fragments in Arndt’s body came from Kent’s gun, Wright testified earlier, but he could not say they did not.
Cayton, the defense’s expert, started testifying about what he could tell from examining the bullet holes in Arndt’s clothing. When he produced photographs of the clothing, Lyon County Attorney Marc Goodman stopped him.
With the jury excused, Goodman told Chief Judge Merlin Wheeler that Cayton was trying to testify about findings that were never provided to the state. Wheeler earlier in the case had ordered reciprocal discovery, meaning that the defense needed to provide all reports and exhibits to the state early enough to allow preparation for trial.
Because that wasn’t done, Wheeler ordered Cayton not to testify about any findings from examining the clothing Arndt was wearing when he was shot.
On Monday morning, jurors will return at 9:30 a.m. to hear instructions and closing arguments. Then their deliberations can begin.