Kansas City’s City Council on Thursday passed a resolution urging Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to pardon Kevin Strickland, who prosecutors say has spent more than 40 years in prison for a triple murder he did not commit.
The resolution expressed support for Strickland’s release and noted that Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker called for Strickland’s exoneration and freedom 45 days ago.
“It is incumbent upon us as a council to try to right some wrongs that have been made,” said Councilman Lee Barnes, 5th District at-large.
Barnes said it was “pressed upon” his heart to call for Strickland’s release. He noted that two men who admitted guilt in the murders “from the beginning” said Strickland, then 18, was not involved.
Councilwoman Heather Hall, 1st District, was not present to vote on the measure. Every other council member voted to pass it.
The resolution was introduced by four council members, including Mayor Quinton Lucas, a day after Parson told 41 Action News that he did not know if Strickland, now 62, is “innocent or not” in the 1978 triple murder at 6934 S. Benton Ave.
“I am not convinced that I’m willing to put other people at risk if you’re not right,” the Republican governor and former Polk County sheriff said Wednesday. “No one has been proven innocent here in a court of law, is the bottom line.”
Councilwoman Katheryn Shields, 4th District at-large, noted Thursday that Strickland has served “far longer” than the two men who admitted guilt. Because of that, Shields said, Strickland’s conviction is “even more of an injustice.”
“The actual murderers of those three individuals have been out for years,” Shields said, adding that the case “truly is an outrage.”
The men who admitted guilt, Kilm Adkins and Vincent Bell, spent about 10 years in prison for the murders before they were released in 1989 and 1990, respectively.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the City Council’s resolution.
Earlier this month, 13 state lawmakers, including the Republican chair of the Missouri House committee that oversees the state’s prison system, also called on Parson to pardon Strickland.
On May 10, Baker announced her office had concluded Strickland is “factually innocent” in the murders. Federal prosecutors in western Missouri, Jackson County’s presiding judge and other officials agreed that Strickland deserves to be exonerated.
In September, The Star reported that the two men who pleaded guilty for decades swore Strickland was not with them and two other accomplices during the shooting. A third suspect, who was never charged, in 2019 also told an investigator that he knew there “couldn’t be a more innocent person” than Strickland.
The lone eyewitness also recanted and wanted nothing more than to see Strickland freed, her relatives said.
The Star’s Kevin Hardy contributed to this report.
