The wife of a Missouri attorney who was mysteriously gunned down in front of his home says her children are scared to go outside and that she feels ‘so alone’.
Thomas Pickert, a 39-year-old personal injury lawyer in Kansas City, was killed Wednesday while sitting on his front porch after he returned from walking his two sons to school.
Police said Pickert’s wife, Emily Riegel, was home at the time and heard a gunshot and then found her husband fatally injured outside.
Police have not released any suspect information nor identified a person of interest in the shooting, but witnesses say the shooter sped away from the scene in a white 1997 Chevrolet van.
The wife of a Missouri attorney who was mysteriously gunned down in front of his home, 39-year-old Thomas Pickert (left and right), says her children are scared to go outside and she feels ‘so alone’. Pickert was killed Wednesday while sitting on his front porch after he returned from walking his two sons to school
Police said Pickert’s wife, Emily Riegel (pictured, right, with Pickert), was home at the time and heard a gunshot and then found her husband fatally injured outside
Investigators interviewed the man to whom the van was registered, David Jungerman, who was a defendant in a case that Pickert recently tried,
Media reports indicated Pickert, who worked for Fowler Pickert Eisenmenger LLC in Kansas City, had represented a homeless man who was suing Jungerman for shooting him and causing him to lose part of his leg.
The attorney won the case for his client, which resulted in Jungerman having to pay $5.75 million in damages.
But police spokeswoman Kari Thompson said on Thursday that Jungeman is not a suspect in Pickert’s death.
Jill Chadwick, a spokeswoman for The University of Kansas Health System, spoke on behalf of Riegel, stating that the palliative care doctor feels ‘alone’.
‘Emily is so alone in this moment,’ Chadwick said Thursday. ‘Her job is dedicated to doing everything she can to help those people have a better quality of life and be stress free and not suffer in pain.
‘She said: “I want to tell Tom’s story. I want to tell you what a wonderful man he was. I just don’t have the capacity to do that now”.’
Police have not released any suspect information nor identified a person of interest in the shooting, but witnesses say the shooter sped away from the scene in a white 1997 Chevrolet van (Pictured, crime scene)
Investigators interviewed the man to whom the van was registered, David Jungerman, who was a defendant in a case that Pickert recently tried. The attorney won the case for his client, which resulted in Jungerman having to pay $5.75 million in damages (Pictured, crime scene)
The family is still arranging a funeral and neighbors are shaken over the shooting.
‘I was just shocked. I was stunned,’ Deborah Carlton told KMBC. ‘We can’t be afraid, but we also have to get the information and find out if there was a connection to something.’
Neighbor David Wesley said: ‘I really feel for them as neighbors. I trust and hope this community here will embrace them and gather around them right now.