Steve Fry
Courthouse Reporter
Topeka, Kan.
I've been covering courts and spot news for a number of years. I started full time in newspapers in 1975, after working part time as a reporter for two years while I was a journalism student at the University of Kansas. Once I graduated and was full time, I covered crime and all kinds of spot news.
Then for more than 26 years, I wrote about courts: state district courts in Kansas, U.S. District Courts in Kansas and Missouri, appellate courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Stories have included homicides, mayhem, capital murder trials, the Rev. Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church, and scandals in local government, law enforcement agencies, and the business world. I also have an interest in military history and have met some amazing men and women who have served our country through the years.
In addition to writing, I also do photography. One poignant experience was when I photographed the arrest of a Kansas woman in an Oklahoma fast-food parking lot for the cold-case slayings of her ex-husband and his fiancée. She is appealing her two murder convictions resulting in two consecutive 50-year prison terms.
My passion for reporting has always been strong. It was the career I dreamed of as a young boy, and have enjoyed every minute of it. Contributing to the WIBW news team provides me with yet another venue to share some important stories.
My wife, Anita, and I have some dogs, several cats who adopted us, and a bossy, sometimes cranky donkey named Hazel.
Dana Lynn Chandler is asking a Shawnee County District Court judge to reconsider her ruling in November to try Chandler a second time on two counts of murder committed in 2002.
Six witnesses called Tuesday by Dana Lynn Chandler, who awaits retrial on two counts of murder, will have to return to the witness chair in January because Chandler needs to ask them more questions she didn’t ask on Tuesday.
A defendant charged with murder in the shooting death of the victim is alleging he acted in self-defense in September in the death.
A Topeka man who earlier pleaded guilty to fires that damaged several central Topeka homes was sentenced Tuesday to probation.
A Shawnee County prosecutor opposed cutting the bond of a man charged with killing one man and wounding a second victim to $250,000 on Monday.
Shots exchanged between occupants of two cars in a west Topeka convenience store parking lot failed to wound anyone in either car, evidence showed Friday during a preliminary hearing in Shawnee County District Court.
A Topeka man charged with beating a Shawnee County Corrections officer inside the jail is asking a judge to order his release from jail, alleging his right to a speedy trial has been violated.
A Deputy Disciplinary Administrator on Friday, urged a panel of attorneys to indefinitely suspend the law license of Jacqie Spradling, who prosecuted the criminal cases of Dana Lynn Chandler, whose convictions in the two shooting deaths were overturned, and a man convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault.
The prosecutor who faces disciplinary action tied to a high-profile double-murder case owned her errors on Thursday when she faced the panel of the Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office.
In summer 2002, Mike Sisco told a friend he feared he would be killed by his ex-wife, a good friend of Sisco testified on Wednesday during a disciplinary hearing of a prosecutor who prosecuted the murder case.
Retired Topeka Police Sgt. Richard Volle testified during the disciplinary hearing of former Shawnee County prosecutor Jacqie Spradling.
A disciplinary hearing for Jacqie Spradling opened Monday. She is accused of lying to juries to gain convictions in high-profile murder and sexual assault cases.
U.S. Representative Steven Charles Watkins Jr., 44, will face a preliminary hearing in connection with three felonies and one misdemeanor linked to alleged voting charges.
Dana Lynn Chandler, who faces two charges of first-degree murder in 2002 and who is acting as her own lawyer, told Shawnee County District Court Judge Cheryl Rios on Wednesday that the judge was limiting the number of witnesses Chandler could call in an upcoming hearing.
A court hearing quickly ended Tuesday when defendant Dana Chandler, who is charged with two shooting deaths in 2002, didn’t waive her right to be present inside the courtroom during her hearing.
The number of pre-trial hearings to be heard before Dana Lynn Chandler faces jurors in her re-trial on two charges of first-degree murder are ramping up, according to Shawnee County District Court records.
The Shawnee County District Attorney’s office isn’t barred from trying Dana Lynn Chandler a second time in the 2002 shooting deaths of two people in a west Topeka home, a judge has ruled.
The Kansas Supreme Court this week dismissed a defendant’s motion in which he sought to overturn his convictions in the killings of two of three slaying victims.
A 19-year-old will face jurors after he was bound over this week in the death of one man and a fleeing police officers.
A Shawnee County District Court judge on Friday denied a defense motion to cut the bond of a defendant charged with shooting a man and woman multiple times in April 2019.
26-year-old Topeka man charged with attempted murder and other charges will face a pre-trial hearing in February in Shawnee County District Court.
A father testified Tuesday that his adult son suffered head injuries and injuries to a foot and hand during a beating on March 8 in a southwest Topeka apartment.
In seeking to overturn two counts of first-degree murder, defendant Dana Lynn Chandler called two witnesses to testify on Monday, including the prosecutor who convicted Chandler in 2012 of the two shooting deaths.
A Topeka man charged with murder in the shooting death of a teenager will face an all-day preliminary hearing in the case, according to Shawnee County District Court records on Thursday.
The jury trial of a Shawnee County Jail inmate charged with beating a corrections officer probably will be scheduled about the first of 2021, a judge told Anthony Ray Miles on Wednesday.
Three men charged in the April 4 slaying of a 28-year-old man will hear testimony tied to the killing during a three-day preliminary hearing in mid-January, which was scheduled on Friday.
A 52-year-old defendant charged with murder in the death of a pedestrian fleeing a sports car when he was struck from behind has undergone testing for a diminished capacity defense, the motorist’s defense attorney said Thursday.
Dana Lynn Chandler, murder defendant, didn’t want two stand-by attorneys to continue to represent her in her re-trial.
A Shawnee County District Court judge has permanently ordered a Johnson County man to not perform autopsies without the supervision of a doctor licensed to perform medicine and surgery in Kansas.
A 35-year-old man was formally arraigned Thursday on charges of attempted first-degree murder and felony criminal possession of a weapon.
Dana Lynn Chandler, who is facing the re-trial in the 2002 shooting deaths of her former husband and his fiancee, wants the stand-by attorneys aiding her legal defense to be removed from the case, Chandler said in a court motion.
A 28-year-old woman who was convicted for her part in an incident in which a 35-year-old motorist fleeing a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper was shot to death on November 27, 2018, was sentenced on Thursday after she was convicted a second time.
The question isn’t whether Kristoffer Lee Klesath, who is charged with murder, shot Darton A. Fields II in self-defense or whether it was murder, according to testimony Tuesday in Shawnee County District Court.
A U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday in favor of two Topeka police officers in the shooting death of a Dominique White.
Dana Lynn Chandler, defendant in the retrial of a two-victim murder case, will pick the defense expert witnesses and make other major decisions when she acts as her own defense attorney and faces jurors, a Shawnee County District Court judge told her Monday.
A high school basketball coach facing child pornography charges also will face more federal charges, a federal prosecutor told a magistrate court judge on Thursday.
A 58-year-old man charged with eight felonies including sexual assaults and kidnapping faces a pending felony drug possession charge and has been convicted of several sex-related offenses outside Kansas, according to Shawnee County District Court records.
Prosecutors in the re-trial of Dana Lynn Chandler, who is charged in the shooting deaths of two people, aren’t in contempt of court when they didn’t file answers to a Chandler motion, the Shawnee County District Court judge hearing the case wrote.
A judge, prosecutor and two defense attorneys briefly mulled Monday whether to schedule an 11-year-old sex assault case for trial in early 2021.
Three unrelated murder cases in which six men are defendants will be delayed at least two weeks due to scheduling complications tied to the COVID-19 outbreak in Shawnee County Jail.
Shawnee County Department of Corrections staff members think the COVID-19 outbreak among in the jail inmates stemmed from a visitor or a staff member, DOC Director Brian Cole said Thursday during an interview with 13 NEWS.
Murder defendant Dana Lynn Chandler, who is defending herself in a retrial on charges she killed her former husband and his fiancee in 2002, continued to stand and argue what she considered legal points after the hearing was officially over on Thursday.
Shawnee County Jail inmate Ray Anthony Miles, who is charged with severely attacking a jail corrections officer, repeatedly asked a detective on Wednesday whether Miles had the right to defend himself.
Kari Marie Reveles was walking into a central Topeka residence when she heard a gunshot and felt the wind knocked out of her, Reveles testified this week.
An 18-year-old man charged with killing his girlfriend sat in the witness chair Wednesday to testify he took Xanax and smoked marijuana on the day she was fatally shot.
A Topeka man who repeatedly stabbed his wife and severely beat her was sentenced Thursday to more than 26 years in prison.
Charged with two counts of murder, Dana Lynn Chandler will assert she was in Colorado when her former husband and his fiancee were shot to death in Topeka in 2002, court records say.
Through his defense attorney, a 37-year-old man charged in the 2019 beating death of an off-duty corrections officer on Tuesday sought and got a 60-day postponement before the case returns to court.
The relationship of a man and woman known for its violence ended in February when he was fatally shot three times while the two were in an east Topeka home, witnesses testified Friday in a preliminary hearing.
Jarrett William Smith, a 24-year-old former U.S. Army soldier, was sentenced Wednesday to two concurrent 30-month prison terms tied to providing information on how to manufacture an explosive device and make napalm.
