Trial set to begin in attempted murder of Wyandotte County deputy

Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial for two men charged with attempting to kill a Wyandotte County deputy sheriff last year.

Deputy Scott Wood was shot seven times last March when three armed men attempted to rob a Kansas City, Kan., convenience store where he had stopped on his way home from work.

Dyron M. King, 25, and Cecil D. Meggerson, 36, are charged in Wyandotte County District Court with attempted capital murder of a law enforcement officer.

A third defendant, 19-year-old Charles Bowser, is facing the same charge, but his trial was delayed after he recently obtained a new attorney.

According to previous court testimony, the deputy was talking to the clerk inside a 7-Eleven on Shawnee Drive near Interstate 635 when he was ordered to the ground at gunpoint by one of three masked men. Prosecutors allege the robbers were in the midst of a spree of business holdups.

Wood, who was in uniform, was struck on the head with a blunt object and disarmed. He was on the floor, face down, when one or more of the robbers began shooting him, according to prior testimony. He was shot in the jaw, shoulder, abdomen and lower chest.

The deputy spent two weeks in the hospital. Officials with the sheriff’s office said he is continuing to recuperate and hopes to soon return to work.

Besides the attempted murder charge, King, Meggerson and Bowser are charged with aggravated robbery, conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, aggravated battery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.