KANSAS CITY, Mo. — KSHB 41 News anchor Caitlin Knute, who is also part of the KSHB 41 I-Team, is interested in hearing from you. Send her an e-mail.
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Almost exactly nine years after he was first charged in the shooting deaths of six people, the trial for accused serial killer Fredrick Scott is slated to begin.
At a pretrial hearing Friday, a judge confirmed jury selection will begin Aug. 31, with the trial slated to start Sept. 3.
About half of the potential jurors have already been dismissed by both sides following a questionnaire they were asked to fill out.
Some are being dismissed because of the jurors' self-described personal hardships, but some have been stricken by both sides due to familiarity with the case, which dominated headlines almost a decade ago.
READ MORE | KC police are 'aware of the similarities,' actively investigating homicides along Indian Creek Trail
Because it was once a high-profile case, the files are sealed to the public, and the judge has repeatedly denied KSHB 41 News' requests for a camera in the courtroom in recent years, including Friday.
Five of the victims were older white men killed between 2016 and 2017 on or near the Indian Creek Trail in South Kansas City. The sixth was a homeless woman in Grandview.
While Scott was originally charged in August 2017, with additional charges filed in March 2018, his trial has been delayed repeatedly.
In addition to changes in judges and defense attorneys, the biggest delay has been due to Scott fluctuating in and out of mental competency while in the Jackson County Jail.
Court proceedings revealed Scott is schizophrenic, but at times, he has gone off his medication while in custody.
Jail staff previously explained to KSHB 41's Caitlin Knute they cannot force an inmate to take medication, but the Missouri Department of Mental Health can.
However, the Missouri Department of Mental Health has limited bed space and faces a backlog of cases. That includes both those waiting to be evaluated for mental competency, as well as individuals found to be in need of treatment.
In one of Knute's previous in-depth reports, KSHB 41 shared that in January 2025 the wait to be evaluated by the Missouri Department of Mental Health could take up to four months, in addition to another 12 months of wait time for an available bed, if that individual is admitted to their care.
Scott was most recently deemed competent to stand trial in July of last year, despite his defense arguing to the contrary.
Some of the victims' family members told Knute at the time they were cautiously optimistic the case was finally going to trial, only to learn the start date was being pushed back to accommodate the defense's request for more time to prepare, citing an estimated 113 potential witnesses.
READ MORE | 'Bummer of a day': Family of victims of alleged serial killer react to 2026 trial date
"I am so grateful that it is finally coming to a conclusion to starting the trial," Bill Darby, the brother of victim Mike Darby, told KSHB 41 on Friday. "We are less than two weeks away, but we all know that anything can happen in these next two weeks."
Both the defense and the state declined to comment following Friday's hearing.
The timeline of the killings
The first death was in August 2016. 54-year-old John Palmer, a local cook, was shot multiple times and dragged into the nearby woods just off the trail.
"He was a good person, good man, family man," his friend Angela Sadler shared with us in a 2016 interview shortly after his murder.
Six months later in February 2017, 66-year-old David Lenox, a Vietnam War veteran, was shot and killed while walking his dog in the parking lot of the Willow Creek Apartments.
"Not having my dad here, the way he died for absolutely no reason, is gut wrenching for us," Lenox's daughter shared in a previous interview.
A little over a month later, the body of 57-year-old Timothy Rice, who was homeless, was discovered under a shelter house near the trail.
The following month, Mike Darby died from a single gunshot wound to the back of his head. His two beloved dogs he had been walking were still sitting near his body when police arrived.
A couple months later, 57-year-old Steve Gibbons, a husband and father of two, was fatally shot in the back of the head after departing a KCATA bus.
Security video and DNA evidence at that scene led police to then 22-year-old Fredrick Scott, who admitted to routinely using the Indian Creek Trail.
Police would later attribute yet another death to Scott, the only one that didn't meet the previous pattern of white men ages 54 to 67.
65-year-old Karen Harmeyer, a homeless woman, was shot in the 1200 block of Blue Ridge Boulevard in Grandview. Detectives later speculated that because of the way she was dressed, she might have been mistaken for a man.
Scott initially admitted to killing Palmer and Gibbons, but he said the latter was an accident, claiming the gun went off as he pulled it from his pocket.
No official motive was given by authorities, but Scott repeatedly said during an interrogation "that he was angry over the death of his brother, which had occurred in 2015," per a probable cause statement.
While Scott's mental health has been at the center of many of the hearings held in the case over the years, his public defender made comments in court Friday indicating they don't plan to address his mental health as part of his defense.
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