GIST: "The family of Olin “Pete” Coones, who spent 12 years in prison for a crime he did not commit and died months after his 2020 release, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against Kansas City, Kansas, police.
The lawsuit, brought by Deirdre “Dee” Coones, his widow, alleges that detectives with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department fabricated statements, failed to disclose exculpatory evidence and coached an unreliable jailhouse informant to make false claims — all of which contributed to Coones’ wrongful incarceration.
It further contends the official practices of KCKPD — and by extension, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas — of that day fit a pattern where clearing homicide cases was “more important than preventing wrongful convictions.” A spokesperson said the UG is “unable to comment” on pending lawsuits.
KCKPD did not immediately comment on the claims. Wally Hilke, an attorney at the Chicago law firm Loevy & Loevy, which is representing Coones’ family, said Coones was “deeply wronged” by KCK detectives who “ignored and concealed evidence that Olin was innocent and fabricated false evidence to railroad him.”
At age 52, Coones was handed a 50-year prison sentence in 2009 for the murders of Kathleen and Carl Schroll, who were found shot to death on the morning of April 7, 2008, in their KCK home. Coones knew Kathleen Schroll because she had worked for years as a caretaker for his father — and Coones later accused her of elder abuse and scamming his dad out of thousands of dollars.
A father of five and retired mail carrier, Coones was arrested hours after the shooting as he drove his younger children to a school bus stop. Coones, who died in 2021, previously told The Star he thought he was being carjacked because two men jumped out in front of them with guns drawn. Then an officer pulled up in a squad car and pointed a shotgun in the face of his teenage son, he recalled.
No physical evidence or eyewitnesses tied Coones to the crime.
He maintained his innocence and said he was with his family during the time of the shooting. He believed he would soon be freed because he trusted the legal system and thought police would realize they made a mistake.
After two trials, however, Coones was convicted of killing Kathleen, but not Carl. Coones would not walk free until his conviction was overturned by a Wyandotte County judge more than 12 years later.
That outcome came with support from the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s conviction integrity unit, which was formed in 2017 to review cases of potential wrongful convictions.
Exonerated in November 2020, Coones died of cancer 108 days after his release from prison — a medical condition his family and lawyers say went undiagnosed during his time in prison. He was 64.
During his innocence bid, lawyers for Coones presented the theory that Coones was the victim of an elaborate revenge plot concocted by Kathleen Schroll to kill her husband and herself and then frame Coones for their murders. She did so, the lawyers alleged, to escape financial and legal troubles as she faced criminal penalties for forgery and embezzlement, including $11,000 she allegedly stole from her then-workplace. And they further contended the murder-suicide would be the only way for the Schrolls to leave behind life insurance money for their daughter.
At the hearing that led to Coones’ release, Judge Bill Klapper heard testimony from Dr. Erik Mitchell, the medical examiner who performed the original autopsies on the Schrolls. He testified that police failed to disclose key facts — including that the murder weapon belonged to Kathleen Schroll — and agreed her death was most likely a suicide.
Coones’ legal team also discovered a spent bullet that crime scene investigators had missed, lodged in the stuffing of a pillow that was near Carl Schroll’s body on the day he was shot.
It was found with the assistance of the DA’s office, and countered the prosecution’s theory from years before that Coones had clubbed Carl Schroll with a blunt object before shooting him.
Photographs show the fourth bullet discovered in the shooting. Pete Coones' attorneys In the lawsuit filed Thursday, lawyers for Coones’ family — including attorneys at the Kansas City law firm Morgan Pilate, which helped free Coones — allege detectives landed on Coones as the murderer despite a “tremendous volume of evidence” that proved his innocence. That included evidence of Kathleen’s DNA, not Coones’, found on the gun.
The attorneys also allege that detectives suppressed information that could have kept Coones out of prison. For example, detectives heard from Kathleen Schroll’s co-workers and family that she told them of a threatening encounter she had with Coones at a gas station two days before her death. The detectives obtained surveillance footage that contradicted the claim, but failed to disclose that information, according to the lawsuit.
To build a case against Coones, detectives also “fed information about the crime” to a jailhouse informant they knew to be unreliable, according to the lawsuit. When Klapper threw out Coones’ conviction, he lambasted the prosecutor on the case, Ed Brancart, saying that Brancart had threatened that informant — who may have had mental health issues — with jail time if he did not testify.
Klapper also said Brancart suppressed exculpatory evidence and presented testimony at trial that was “patently untrue.”
Now a senior assistant attorney general in Kansas, Brancart has not commented on the case.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported this week that neither candidate for AG — Republican Kris Kobach nor Democrat Chris Mann — has committed to firing or keeping him on.
After spending 12 more than years in prison for murder, Olin “Pete” Coones walked out of the Wyandotte County Courthouse and into the arms of his family Thursday evening. After more than 12 years behind bars, Coones left the courthouse a free man. The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office moved to drop the charges against Coones, now 63, after the judge found Coones received an unfair trial in the 2008 shooting deaths of Kathleen and Carl Schroll.
The Coones’ lawsuit also takes aim at KCKPD’s broader practices at the time, alleging the department allowed detectives to engage in “improper and unreliable investigative practices.”
Former detective Roger Golubski, who was indicted in September on civil rights violations, did not investigate Coones, but Coones’ lawyers noted accusations against him in alleging broad misconduct.
The lawsuit mentioned several cases that were reported on in a September investigation published by The Star, which examined several questionable Wyandotte County convictions. In those cases, spanning from 1997 to 2009, detectives were accused of coercing witnesses or falsifying evidence against suspects who, now in prison, maintain they are innocent.
Last year, Coones’ estate was awarded about $826,000 by Kansas. The lawsuit is now seeking a jury trial to be held in KCK."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resurce. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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