Murder trial in North Kansas City officer’s death draws jury from outside metro
A jury selected from a pool of St. Charles County, Missouri, residents is set to hear testimony in the capital murder trial of a Kansas City man charged with killing a North Kansas City police officer.
Prosecutors have accused 28-year-old Joshua T. Rocha of fatally shooting officer Daniel Vasquez during a traffic stop in July 2022. They are seeking the death penalty if Rocha is convicted.
Because of pretrial publicity, the court decided to select a jury from outside Clay County, drawing from a pool of jurors from a county on the other side of the state. While it’s not unheard of for jurors to be selected from an outside county for high-profile cases, it is rare.
Prospective jurors were given questionnaires in August, and jury selection began on Sept. 15.
Opening statements in the trial, which is expected to take two weeks, are scheduled to begin Monday at the Clay County Courthouse in Liberty.
The shooting occurred about 10:40 a.m. July 19, 2022, when Vasquez pulled over an early 2000s gray Ford Taurus for having an expired temporary tag.
According to court documents, the dashboard camera allegedly showed that as Vasquez approached the car, a man wearing a dark T-shirt, shorts and black shoes shot the officer in the face through a partially opened driver’s side door. The man then got out of the sedan and allegedly fired two more times at Vasquez, who was lying in the street. The man then got back into the car and drove away.
The shooting triggered a statewide “Blue Alert” — issued when a law enforcement officer is seriously injured or killed in the line of duty — and sparked a manhunt that lasted for hours, until Joshua T. Rocha walked into a Clay County government building and surrendered.
In the days that followed, the killing of the 32-year-old Vasquez drew extensive media coverage of the killing and asquez’s funeral, as well as a comment during a radio program by Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas that Rocha, if convicted, should receive the death penalty.
Vasquez had joined the North Kansas City Police Department in January 2021 as a recruit officer and was promoted to full officer after graduating from the KCPD Regional Police Academy in July 2021, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
The Clay County Prosecutor’s Office declined to answer pre-trial questions about the jury selection process, including how often and how many times jurors are brought in from outside the county.
“We remain steadfast in our pursuit of justice for Daniel Vasquez and his family,” spokeswoman Cher Congour said. “In order to protect the integrity of the criminal court process, we will answer all questions after the jury returns a verdict.”
Rare cases bring outside jurors
In neighboring Jackson County, officials could recall just two cases where outside jurors have been used in the last 20 years, said Scott Lauck, a spokesman for the Jackson County Circuit Court.
The most recent one was in the summer of 2023, involving the fatal shooting of Clinton police officer Gary Lee Michael Jr. in 2017.
On Aug. 6, 2017, Michael pulled Ian McCarthy over in Clinton, about 75 miles southeast of Kansas City. McCarthy got out of his vehicle, shot the officer with a high-powered rifle and left. A manhunt unfolded and McCarthy was captured two days later in rural Henry County.
That trial was moved from Henry County to Jackson County Circuit Court, with the jury selected from Platte County.
The jury found McCarthy guilty of first-degree murder in June 2023, but couldn’t reach a unanimous decision during the sentencing phase, though it did find the death sentence could be appropriate.
Jackson County Judge Marco Roldan sentenced McCarthy in September 2023 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Jury from Jasper county hears Porter case
The other case was a high-profile one in February 2006 involving Daniel Porter, who was accused of kidnapping his 7-year-old son, Sam, and 8-year-old daughter, Lindsey, in June 2004 to terrorize his ex-wife, Tina Porter.
The jury, selected from Jasper County residents, found Porter guilty of two counts of parental kidnapping and two counts of kidnapping with the intent to terrorize his ex-wife.
Jackson County Judge Michael W. Manners sentenced Porter 38 years in prison.
An appeals court later overturned two of the kidnapping convictions, allowing two lesser felony convictions of parental kidnapping to stand.
In September 2007, Porter led authorities to the shallow grave where his two children’s remains were uncovered in a wooded area in Sugar Creek.
Porter pleaded guilty to murdering his children in January 2008, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole on two counts of first-degree murder.
Outside jurors hear Kopetsky, Runions murder case
In another highly-publicized case, Kylr Yust was found guilty in April 2021 of killing two of his former girlfriends, who disappeared roughly 10 years apart in Cass County.
Jurors for his trial were brought in from St. Charles County because of the publicity surrounding the case in the Kansas City region.
The case began when 17-year-old Kara Kopetsky disappeared in May 2007. Then, in September 2016, another one of Yust’s former girlfriends, 21-year-old Jessica Runions, was reported missing.
Yust had been linked to both women early in their disappearances, but their cases remained long-running mysteries until a mushroom hunter found their remains in April 2017 in a wooded area south of Belton.
Prosecutors charged Yust six months later with two counts of first-degree murder in their deaths.
The jury convicted Yust of voluntary manslaughter in Kopetsky’s death and of second-degree murder in Runion’s death. He was sentenced to life plus 15 years in a Missouri prison for killing the women and dumping their bodies.
A Missouri appeals court later upheld the convictions.
