Prosecutors on both sides of the state line that runs through Kansas City announced homicide and other charges Wednesday against a 30-year-old man who had walked free last year after two mistrials on a different murder charge.
Antoine R. Fielder of Kansas City, Kansas, was “well known (to law enforcement) and working on both sides of the state line,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said during a press conference with law enforcement from both Jackson and Wyandotte counties.
Fielder was charged in Jackson County with first-degree murder in the killing of Rosemarie Harmon, whose body was found in the 600 block of Spruce Ave. on Dec. 26. He was also charged with assault and armed criminal action for allegedly shooting Harmon’s male friend.
After two Kansas City, Kansas, juries failed to convict him in the 2015 killing of an Overland Park woman last year, Fielder was released from Wyandotte County jail in July. That murder charge was ultimately dismissed in September.
Both Baker and Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree warned Fielder against witness intimidation.
“As much as we reach out and ask you to step forward to help us put knuckleheads away,” Dupree said, “it’s also important that the knuckleheads know that we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that our witnesses and our victims are protected from knuckleheads.”
Now in the Jackson County detention center, Fielder has a $500,000 cash-only bond, Baker said.
In Wyandotte County, Fielder faces charges of aggravated robbery, criminal possession of a firearm and intimidation of witnesses. He stands trial there on July 30.
Baker said both counties are working together to protect witnesses in the cases and warned Fielder against any threats.
“We will not tolerate any harm or threats to go to any of our witnesses,” Baker said. “Mr. Fielder must play by the same rules we play by and those rules are a respect of the process.”
According to Jackson County court documents, the killing of Harmon was caught on surveillance cameras and done by a black man in dark four-door vehicle. Three days after the shooting, a woman told Kansas City police that she met up with Fielder to “party” and Fielder showed her video from his cellphone of news coverage of four murders he said he committed, including “Rosie’s,” or Rosemarie Harmon, documents show.
Peggy Lowe is an investigative reporter at KCUR. She's on Twitter at @peggyllowe.
