Man in prison for killing 2 homeless men in KC charged with third murder: prosecutors
A man serving time for the murders of two men at a Kansas City homeless camp has been charged with killing a third in a similar homicide from 2004, prosecutors said Monday.
Michael J. Gullett, 64, was charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of Steven Cassidy, whose remains were not identified until four years later, according to the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.
Gullett was previously convicted in the 2012 killing of Joe Loehr, who was found sprawled on the ground in a homeless camp near Front Street and Kansas Avenue, and the 2004 homicide of Ryon McDonald, whose torso was later found in a river near Jefferson City.
Cassidy was slain about three months after McDonald, a Missouri State Highway Patrol investigator determined.
In 2016, that detective was assigned to investigate McDonald’s killing — by then considered a Kansas City police cold case — and interviewed a man who said he witnessed Gullett kill another person.
That witness had previously told detectives in August 2004 that he buried a body at the direction of Gullett. Skeletal remains found the next day were later identified as Cassidy. It was determined he was killed with a sharp, heavy object.
The investigator, Lt. Darron Blankenship, in December interviewed Gullett at Western Missouri Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri, where he is incarcerated. Blankenship asked Gullett what made him “take the guy out,” according to court records.
Gullett told the investigator of his childhood trauma. He named Cassidy as the victim, which the detective says he had not yet mentioned, according to a probable cause statement.
Gullett allegedly recalled how he and another person beat Cassidy, who was found near a homeless camp in the city’s Northeast Industrial District. He told the detective he thought he hit Cassidy in the head with a blacksmith hammer, records show.
Blankenship asked Gullett if he had any remorse.
“Well, I think it’s bad to have to take anybody’s life. I mean I really do,” Gullett allegedly told the investigator. “Some I feel worse about than others. But, Cassidy is kinda low on the list.”
When Gullett was arrested in the Loehr murder, he said, “I might be a sociopathic, homicidal maniac,” according to court documents.
Prosecutors said they requested Gullett’s bond to be set at a $1 million.
Gullett did not have an attorney listed Monday in court records in the recent case.
