Steidley guilty of setting warehouse fire

For the second time in 19 months, a Cole County jury on Wednesday found Kurt Steidley guilty of setting the New Year's Day 2011 fire that damaged the Everhart's Sporting Goods warehouse, 2436 Missouri Blvd.

Each of the juries spent about 3½ hours deliberating Steidley's fate, after hearing testimony for four days in the January 2014 trial and six days this year.

Both Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson and defense attorney Chris Slusher declined to comment following the jury's verdict announcement Wednesday afternoon.

The state Fire Safety division said it "appreciates the strong cooperative efforts of all the agencies that were part of this investigation, along with the prosecutor's office, and the careful consideration of the case by the members of the jury."

And John Ham, public information officer for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) office in Kansas City, also told the News Tribune it's important to have a cooperative investigation.

"I think this case and verdict demonstrate what can happen when law enforcement partners together and draws upon each other's resources to seek justice," he said.

Green gave Slusher 25 days to file a motion for a new trial.

A similar motion 18 months ago resulted in the 2014 guilty verdict being set aside after Circuit Judge Dan Green determined he had made an error in allowing some evidence.

Steidley, now 55, was indicted in October 2012 for the Jan. 1, 2011 fire.

"This case has shown you what greed can do to a person," Richardson told the jury at the start of his closing argument, "overcome so much common sense and judgment that a person will set a building on fire - to keep from paying a business loss that he had - at the risk of killing firefighters."

Steidley, who lives in Knob Noster, first told investigators he last had been in Jefferson City on Dec. 30, 2010, two days before the fire.

But cell phone records indicated he had made calls in Jefferson City the night of the fire.

Steidley later said he had been in town to take his elderly mother to dinner and grocery shopping, and had stopped by the business to make sure it was locked.

Max Parsons, a Warrensburg plumber who had done work at Steidley's home and some of his business properties, testified Steidley called him the night of the fire, reporting he smelled gas at the Everhart's building - but didn't have a key to get inside.

Richardson reminded the jury that Darrell Gordon, whose Jefferson City real estate business was working with Steidley to sell the Everhart's property, testified he didn't get a key to the building until after the fire.

Richardson also reminded jurors Steidley never called authorities to investigate the gas odor or to turn off the natural gas line to the business.

"Did anybody else have a motive to burn the business records and blow the inventory to pieces?" the prosecutor asked.

But Slusher asked the jury to consider the number of questions the investigation didn't answer.

"The investigation was imprecise, incomplete - and, therefore, incorrect," the defense attorney said in his closing argument. "It led to somebody sitting here who didn't do something."

Slusher reminded the jurors that prosecutors are required to "prove beyond a reasonable doubt" someone committed the crime. But, he said, "if you look at things, you'll find reasonable doubt scattered throughout the case."

He urged the jurors to remember the testimony from several of Steidley's friends, family and business associates - who all said Steidley was a man of good character.

Richardson said none of those people knew details about the fire.

"Six or seven times zero still equals zero," the prosecutor said.

Slusher argued the cooperative investigation involving Jefferson City's fire department, the state fire marshal and ATF still spent too much time focused on Steidley, and didn't make enough effort to check on other possible suspects like Drew Buersmeyer, the Osage County man who had had some disputes with Everhart's store manager Jeff Lister.

"We are not saying that Drew Buersmeyer did it," Slusher said. "We don't know. ... It is not our burden to show that Drew Buersmeyer did or didn't do it."

The ATF's Ham said Wednesday evening: "Specifically to this case, I think the verdict and the jury's decision speaks for itself."

Second-degree arson is a Class C felony, with a punishment of up to seven years in prison. Green scheduled a sentencing hearing for early November.

This version of the story expands upon coverage in an earlier version.