Trial underway in shooting of Wyandotte County deputy

The trial for two men charged with trying to kill a Wyandotte County sheriff’s deputy began Tuesday with a prosecutor saying it was a case solved by forensic science.

In her opening statement, Senior Assistant District Attorney Kristiane Bryant described how Deputy Scott Wood was shot early March 4 when three armed robbers stormed the Kansas City, Kan., convenience store where he stopped on his way home from work.

Bryant said it was the last in a string of robberies committed by three armed men who wore black clothing and masks to conceal their identities.

While no witnesses can identify the robbers by sight, Bryant said it was evidence found near one of those robberies that led investigators to Dyron King, one of three men now charged in the case.

King, 25, and Cecil D. Meggerson, 36, are being tried this week in Wyandotte County District Court on charges including attempted capital murder and aggravated robbery.

The prosecutor said King was identified as a suspect in the string of crimes after his fingerprint was found on a pack of cigarettes near the scene of a gas station robbery in Kansas City.

When investigators went to King’s home, Meggerson and the third suspect, 19-year-old Charles Bowser, were also there, she said.

Bowser will be tried separately.

A gun found in the house had blood on it linked by DNA to the deputy, Bryant said. A pair of boots had blood matching the DNA of a clerk pistol-whipped in another Kansas City robbery.

And gloves found in Bowser’s car parked outside had the DNA of all three men, she said.

According to previous court testimony, Wood 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 who approached while his back was turned.

Wood, who was in uniform, was pistol-whipped and disarmed. He was on the floor, face down, when two of the robbers began shooting him.

As the robbers were leaving, one leaned down and fired one shot into the deputy’s head, Bryant said Tuesday.

The deputy spent two weeks in the hospital and is still recuperating.

Bryant also told jurors that after his arrest, King threatened another deputy at the jail.

King’s lawyer, Debera Erickson, however, said even though King was followed around the jail with a video camera after his arrest, that alleged threat was not recorded.

She also noted that DNA from multiple people was found on the items described by the prosecutor, and those items were found in common areas of the house open to numerous people.

James Spies, attorney for Meggerson, said there was no evidence placing his client at any of the crime scenes. Spies said the glove with Meggerson’s DNA on it did not match any of the gloves worn by the robbers pictured on surveillance videos.

Testimony in the case is expected to last about two weeks.

This story was originally published January 26, 2016 at 5:20 PM.