Kansas quadruple murder trial begins in Ottawa

A prosecutor on Monday described to a jury the grisly crime scenes investigators found nearly three years ago in and around a farmhouse outside Ottawa.

Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting told jurors that Kyle Trevor Flack was responsible for the bloody spring 2013 rampage that left four people dead, including an Olathe woman and her 18-month-old daughter.

“The defendant and the defendant alone committed each and every one of these murders,” Hunting told jurors as Flack’s capital murder trial got underway Monday morning at the Franklin County Courthouse.

In her opening statement, Flack’s attorney, Maban Wright, said the state’s case is based solely on circumstantial evidence and there is reasonable doubt.

“There is no direct evidence that Kyle Flack killed anyone,” she said. “They are asking you to infer that he is guilty.”

Flack, 30, is charged with capital murder for the killings of 21-year-old Kaylie Bailey and her 18-month-old daughter, Lana Bailey. He also is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Andrew Stout, 30, and Steven White, 31.

All four victims were killed with a shotgun.

That shotgun later was found at a trash collection facility in Emporia, Kan., the city where police arrested Flack after the killings.

Tests could not exclude Flack as a contributor of DNA found on the weapon, Hunting said.

According to the prosecutor: White was killed first, about April 20. Afterward, someone piled a tarp and piles of junk on top of his body in an outbuilding near the farmhouse.

Stout was killed April 29. A pile of clothes in his bedroom covered his body.

Bailey and her daughter were killed May 1. Bailey’s body also was found in the bedroom.

Searchers later found Lana’s body in a suitcase floating in Tequa Creek in rural Osage County.

Diapers and paperwork containing her name and her mother’s name were found along the bank of the creek. Lana died from a single shot to the back that passed completely through her body.

Her mother’s body was found nude from the waist down with her hands bound behind her back.

A shot to the back of her head “blew out the front of her face.”

Stout and Flack were seen together at several locations on April 28, the day before Flack killed Stack, prosecutors believe.

Stout and White lived at the farmhouse. Flack sometimes stayed there. Bailey was Stout’s girlfriend.

After Stout’s slaying, a man who used to live with him stopped by the house and saw Flack there. He will testify that he also saw a shotgun.

Flack’s stepfather visited the house and took Flack food on two days after the last killings.

On May 3, Flack drove Bailey’s car to Emporia and stayed with friends.

Several days later, surveillance camera video showed him dropping off her car on the opposite side of town from where he was staying. Items belonging to Bailey and her daughter were found in a trash container near the car.

After they arrested Flack in Emporia, police found black zip ties in his backpack like the ones used to bind Bailey’s hands before she was killed.

Testimony got underway with Detective Tammy Alexander of the Franklin County sheriff’s office talking about her interview of Flack after his May 8 arrest.

He gave several versions of his activities around the time of the killings, she testified.

Prosecutors played a videotape for the jury of her first interview of Flack, who at that time kept asking what was going on.

He got angry at one point during the interview, asking what happened to his friends.

The detective told him they had found three bodies, but didn’t know who they were yet.

Flack then began sniffling and wiping his eyes.

After the video, Alexander testified that some of the things Flack had said were not consistent with things she learned from the investigation.

In his second interview, Flack changed some details, she said. And Flack reacted angrily when detectives pushed him on his inconsistencies.

He repeatedly said he wasn’t there and didn’t know what happened.

Eventually, he told detectives about two drug dealers named Omar and Chewie who may have been involved.

Alexander said they later determined that those people didn’t exist.

If jurors find Flack guilty of capital murder, prosecutors have requested a second phase of the trial for jurors to decide whether he should be sentenced to death.

Prosecutors also will seek sentences of life in prison with no chance of parole for 50 years if Flack is convicted on each of the first-degree murder charges.

Previous coverage includes:

Judge orders Kyle Flack to stand trial in four Ottawa shotgun murders

Comments made by suspect Kyle Flack at issue in Ottawa quadruple murder case

Testimony in Ottawa quadruple murders: Suspect Kyle Flack told police how first death happened

In disbelief, friends describe quadruple murder suspect Kyle Flack as judgmental but loyal

Text messages released in Ottawa quadruple homicide case

Focus shifts to funerals, court appearance in Ottawa murders

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Kansas quadruple murder trial begins in Ottawa."