Man sentenced to life in prison for killing 2 Kansas sheriff’s deputies
This undated photo provided by the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s office shows Antoine Fielder. The 30-year-old man was charged Friday, June 22, 2018, in the shooting deaths of two Kansas sheriff’s deputies who were transporting him between a courthouse and jail. (Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A man was sentenced to two life sentences Thursday for killing two Kansas sheriff’s deputies as they were trying to move him between a courthouse and a jail in June 2018.
Antoine Fielder, 36, pleaded guilty in December to two counts of capital murder and one count of aggravated robbery to avoid the death penalty.
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Fielder had already been charged with two other killings before overpowering and fatally shooting Wyandotte County Deputies Theresa King and Patrick Rohrer in a gated area behind the courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas. Rohrer, 35, died shortly after the shooting and King, 44, died the next day at a hospital.
At the time, Fielder had been tried twice for the June 2015 killing of 22-year-old Kelsey Ewonus, whose body was found in a parked car in Kansas City, Kansas. But the murder charge was dropped after a second trial ended in a hung jury.
Authorities allege that Fielder then fatally shot Rosemarie Harmon, 55, in December 2017 in Kansas City, Missouri, and wounded her friend. Ballistics testing on a gun stolen during a carjacking in Kansas City, Kansas, earlier in December tied him to Harmon’s killing.
When the deputies were shot, Fielder was already facing a first-degree murder charge in Jackson County, Missouri, in Harmon’s death as well as multiple charges in the carjacking in Wyandotte County.
Relatives of Ewonus, whose son was 1 when she was killed, have expressed frustration that Fielder went free after the mistrials, saying they knew he would kill again.