On the morning of October 25, 2017, Thomas Pickert, a 39-year-old attorney, was fatally shot on the front sidewalk of his home in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. He had just returned from walking his two young sons to school. His wife, who was inside the house, heard the gunshots and ran outside to find her husband with a fatal wound.
She reported seeing a white van speeding away from the scene.
The investigation almost immediately focused on David Jungerman, an 84-year-old millionaire businessman. Pickert had recently represented a homeless man in a civil lawsuit against Jungerman, securing a $5.75 million judgment for his client who had been shot by Jungerman. The day before the murder, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office had served Jungerman with property liens related to this judgment. Witnesses reported seeing an older, white-haired man in a white van near Pickert's home around the time of the shooting. Surveillance footage later tracked a white van belonging to Jungerman traveling from his home in Raytown to Pickert's neighborhood on the morning of the murder.
In April 2018, David Jungerman was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. During the investigation, police found an audio recording in which Jungerman seemed to admit to the killing. On the recording, he was heard saying, 'When I think about it, I grin,' and referred to Pickert as the cause of many of his problems. This recording became a key piece of evidence presented by the prosecution during his trial.
In September 2022, after a trial that lasted nearly two weeks, a Jackson County jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding David Jungerman guilty of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. Despite the conviction, Jungerman maintained his innocence. Before he could be sentenced, however, a judge ruled in March 2023 that Jungerman was not competent to proceed with sentencing and committed him to the Missouri Department of Mental Health. David Jungerman died in September 2023 at the age of 85 while still in custody, before a final sentence for the murder of Thomas Pickert was officially imposed.
