Defense attorneys say they were never given key evidence that could have helped five defendants convicted in the 1988 explosion that killed six Kansas City firefighters.</p><p>The attorneys say the evidence &#8212; a one-page police report &#8212; could have been used to implicate other suspects in the case and help prevent a guilty verdict in the 1997 trial that sent five defendants to prison for life.</p><p>The police report, obtained as part of an ongoing investigation by The Kansas City Star, raises additional questions about the whereabouts of two security guards on duty at the construction site where six firefighters died. The guards later testified for the prosecution at the federal trial.</p><p>&#8220;We did not receive that document, and it obviously would have been something we would have used to impeach the testimony of the security guards,&#8221; said Pat Peters, one of the defense attorneys.</p><p>Peters and others said the police report was not among the thousands of pages of investigative documents provided to them before the trial. They added that they&#8217;re not sure federal prosecutors ever had the report to give them.</p><p>&#8220;That document absolutely should have been turned over,&#8221; said John P. O&#8217;Connor, another of the defense attorneys. &#8220;I don&#8217;t see the government holding back that report on purpose, but that doesn&#8217;t matter under the rules governing discovery in criminal court.&#8221;</p><p>The police report, dated Aug. 2, 1990, contains an interview with a witness whose story appears to conflict with the testimony of the guards and their accounts of where they were moments before two fires were set.</p><p>The guards testified that they found their pickup truck on fire after leaving the site to search for prowlers.</p><p>Defense attorneys have long suspected the security guards&#8217; actions that night. They argued in appeals court documents that one of the guards may have actually set the fires as part of an attempted insurance fraud that unintentionally led to the deaths of the firefighters.</p><p>&#8220;It (the report) arguably shows the security guards knew the truck was on fire&#8221; before they left the site, not after they returned, as they said in court, said Susan Hunt, who represented one of the defendants.</p><p>In the early hours of Nov. 29, 1988, two arson fires were set at a construction site in southeast Kansas City, one in a security guard&#8217;s truck and one in a trailer loaded with 25,000 pounds of explosives. The trailer blew up, instantly killing six firefighters &#8212; Thomas Fry, Gerald Halloran, Luther Hurd, James Kilventon Jr., Robert D. McKarnin and Michael Oldham.</p><p>The pre-dawn blasts shook the Kansas City area and touched off one of the most far-reaching criminal investigations in the city&#8217;s history.</p><p>After eight frustrating years, authorities finally charged five small-time hoods &#8212; Frank Sheppard, Earl &#8220;Skip&#8221; Sheppard, Bryan Sheppard, Darlene Edwards and Richard Brown &#8212; from the nearby Marlborough neighborhood. All five have maintained their innocence.</p><p>The Star&#8217;s ongoing investigation supports allegations that security guards may have played a role in the crime. Four people said that two female guards &#8212; one of whom wasn&#8217;t on duty &#8212; acknowledged involvement in the crime.</p><p>The Star has reported that a witness said he saw someone other than the defendants set the fires that sparked the explosions. And the newspaper reported that numerous witnesses said they were pressured by a federal investigator to lie in the case against the five defendants, which was based largely on informant testimony.