Two convicted in heroin conspiracy linked to three deaths
Two Kansas City men were convicted by a federal jury Tuesday for their roles in a heroin trafficking conspiracy that was linked to three deaths.
One of the men, 48-year-old Matthew C. Davis, was previously convicted for abandonment of a corpse after he stashed his girlfriend’s body in the back of a vehicle for days in the River Market.
The other, 33-year-old Timothy M. Kirlin, made regular Greyhound bus trips to Dallas to pick up heroin for distribution in Kansas City. He took the bus because he couldn’t drive after being shot in the head.
Kirlin is subject to a mandatory life sentence for the conspiracy, which lasted from 2002 to 2012. Davis could also be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Both were found guilty of all counts in an indictment, including one that said heroin from the conspiracy caused the death of Amber McGathey in June 2004. Earlier court documents linked heroin distributed by Kirlin and Davis to two other deaths, that of Joshua Webb in March 2002, and of Sean Scantlin in October 2008.
McGathey, of Parkville, was 22 when she died of a heroin overdose. Her decomposing body was found in the back of a Jeep at Fifth and Delaware streets. McGathey was the daughter of Boyd McGathey, a member of the Crime Stoppers TIPS Hotline board of directors.
Davis, the scion of a wealthy family who once collected $8,000 a month from a trust fund, drove the Jeep for days with the body in the back. He even drove the vehicle when he went out with another woman.
Davis was eventually sentenced to four years for abandonment of a corpse. In a separate civil lawsuit, he was ordered to pay McGathey’s family $500,000 for mistreating a corpse.
In 2011 Davis was convicted of almost running over a police officer while fleeing an Olathe restaurant after stealing a bucket of beer. He surrendered after an hours-long standoff at a house in Olathe.
Prosecutors say Kirlin was responsible for the distribution of more than three kilograms of heroin in the Kansas City area. Police stopped him at the bus station in December 2011 but found no drugs. Kirlin later told a police informant he did not get caught because he had swallowed the heroin in 1-gram balloons.
Kirlin was also found guilty Tuesday of being a felon in possession of explosives after police found four pipe bombs and a manual for building a booby-trap device.
Kirlin was ordered to forfeit $200,000 in proceeds from his drug trafficking.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said 10 co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the conspiracy and await sentencing. The case was investigated by Kansas City police.
This story was originally published April 1, 2014 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Two convicted in heroin conspiracy linked to three deaths."