KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A man serving time in a Missouri prison for an attempted carjacking in Kansas City, Missouri, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Johnson County District Court to attempted second-degree murder.
Joseph Kiesling, 20, waived his preliminary hearing and pleaded guilty in the Feb. 25, 2025, incident in Prairie Village.
Kiesling and others began their crime spree about 6:30 p.m. when they took a moped from two men at gunpoint in Penn Valley Park in midtown Kansas City, Missouri.
The two victims said the robbers were on dirt bikes and Kiesling pointed a gun at the head of one of the robbery victims.
About two hours later, Prairie Village police officers were sent to an attempted carjacking near West 75th Street and State Line Road.
Two people on a motorcycle, one of whom was Kiesling, tried to carjack a vehicle, but the driver was able to get away.
One of the men on the motorcycle fired shots at the vehicle, but the bullets missed the driver.
Kiesling and the second suspect sped into KCMO on W. 75th Street before crashing.
They were arrested by KCPD officers.
Detectives investigating the robbery in Penn Valley Park were at the department's Metro Patrol Station.
They recognized Kiesling as a suspect in the park robbery.
Kiesling pleaded guilty in September in the robbery case and is serving time in a Missouri prison.
He is in the Western Reception and Diagnostic Correctional Center in St. Joseph, Missouri.
A presentence investigation has been ordered in the Johnson County case.
Sentencing in that case is set for March 25, 2026.
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