The opening arguments in the murder trial for accused cop killer Thomas Kinworthy began today, with both prosecution and defense agreeing that Kinworthy killed St. Louis police officer Tamarris Bohannon.
"I'm going to tell you something the defense doesn't normally say in an opening statement," said Kinworthy's public defender, Anne Legomsky. "We admit it. We admit that Tommy did the things that night."
Legomsky conveyed her condolences to the family of Bohannon, but said that Kinworthy "could not understand what he was doing was wrong" when he shot and killed the 29-year-old St. Louis Metropolitan Police officer on August 29, 2020.
On that day, an armed Kinworthy ran into a house on Hartford Street in Tower Grove South. The home’s two residents fled out the back door. Bohannon responded to the scene, but as he approached the front door, Kinworthy opened fire on him and killed him. After a 12-hour standoff, during which he was holed up in the bathroom of the Hartford house, Kinworthy was taken into custody.
"What happened that night is simply not in dispute. What we're here for is why it happened," said Legomsky.
She indicated that when the defense makes their case later this week, they will argue that Kinworthy has schizoaffective disorder and was "actively hearing voices" in the days leading up to and throughout the entirety of the ordeal on Hartford.
Legomsky said that Kinworthy's mental ailments are in part the result of "ongoing abuse" he suffered at the hands of both parents throughout his childhood. "Every kind of abuse you can imagine," she said, including physical, sexual and emotional. Kinworthy is from Owensville, Missouri, and had come to St. Louis in August 2020 to meet with his estranged father, whom he hadn't seen in more than a decade.
Kinworthy rocked back and forth at the defendant's table as Legomsky spoke. She recounted the events of August 29, 2020, from Kinworthy's perspective, which she argued was marked by delusions and paranoia.
On the day in question, Kinworthy was at a concert in Tower Grove Park and Facetimed his ex-wife from there. She saw him hiding behind trees and claiming that people were following him.
When he made his way to Hartford Street, Kinworthy encountered a homeless man named Mark Smith and thought Smith "was coming to get him," Legomsky said. It was only after Kinworthy shot Smith that he went into the house on Hartford, triggering the residents’ 911 calls and Bohannan’s fatal approach to the front door.Legomskyargued that due to psychosis, Kinworthy could not understand what he was doing was wrong.
After shooting Bohannon, Kinworthy again Facetimed his ex-wife, Legomsky said, and even fired at the bathroom walls, as he believed the voices he hallucinated were coming through those walls to get him.
After a 12-hour standoff, the police used a robot to remove the lock from the front door on Hartford. A SWAT team entered and eventually subdued Kinworthy.
One of the experts to be called by the defense is Patricia Zapf, a forensic psychologist who Legomsky said "literally wrote the manual on how to conduct certain forensic evaluations."
The trial will likely come down to how convinced the jury is by the mental health experts called by Kinworthy's defense, as well as how effectively prosecutors are able to pick apart those experts' arguments.
"Everything was so calm before Thomas Kinworthy, a vicious tornado, arrived on the block," said prosecutor Tanja Engelhardt in her opening statement.
She recounted the charges Kinworthy faces: first-degree murder as well as nine others. She asked that the jury use their common sense.
The prosecution is expected to call their own mental health expert, who will argue that Kinworthy was in a drug-induced psychosis brought upon by taking Adderall in the months leading up to the incident on Hartford.
One of the first witnesses called today was Bohannon's widow, Alexis, who said that her late husband had a big heart. She recounted the painful memories of him being taken off life support in the wake of the shooting and broke into tears when shown a photo of him.
Another witness was the owner of the home on Hartford, Steve Haag.
Kinworthy's other public defender, Brian Horneyer, asked Haag if he saw any police officers do something to provoke Kinworthy opening fire on them.
Haag replied, "How do you provoke getting shot in the head?" Haag then clarified, "They did nothing to provoke the shot."
The trial is scheduled to run for as long as two weeks, though it may not take that entire time.
The case has already drawn significant controversy in the past year as Judge Elizabeth Hogan, siding with the public defender’s office, has exercised what’s called “prior restraint,” forbidding the Post-Dispatch from publishing material from Kinworthy's mental health evaluation that was made public by accident for a brief period last year.
“Prior restraint” is a legal term for government censoring speech even before it is made, which the Supreme Court has said it is only allowed to do in extreme cases such as when national security is at risk. Hogan's use of it here drew significant flak from the legal community as well as free speech groups.
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