By Tony Rizzo
The Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A February re-sentencing hearing has been set for the youngest defendant convicted in the killings of six Kansas City firefighters in 1988.
Bryan Sheppard was among five people sentenced to life in prison for the arson fire that sparked a massive explosion at a southeast Kansas City construction site.
But Sheppard, who was 17 at the time of the November 1988 explosion, was granted a new sentencing hearing after the U.S. Supreme Court found that it was unconstitutional to impose mandatory prison sentences of life without parole on juveniles.
The other defendants were adults and their cases were not affected by the Supreme Court ruling.
Sheppard, now 45, will now be able to argue for a lesser sentence.
A federal judge in Kansas City scheduled the sentencing hearing for Feb. 15 and 16.
Firefighters Thomas Fry, Gerald Halloran, Luther Hurd, James Kilventon Jr., Robert D. McKarnin and Michael Oldham died just before dawn on Nov. 29, 1988.
They were fighting a fire in a construction trailer parked near the site of highway project near 87th Street and Bruce R. Watkins Drive.
The firefighters did not know that the trailer contained 25,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil.
The ensuing explosion caused a second trailer to explode. The blasts were felt and heard by people miles away.
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