Man who Shot KS Goose Hunter found Guilty!
Guilty
By Gwendolynne Larson
Originally published 02:20 p.m., June 30, 2008
Updated 02:55 p.m., June 30, 2008
It took jurors about three hours to decide that Theron Thomas Kent killed Beau Arndt late last year.
Kent, 57, of Topeka was convicted this afternoon of involuntary manslaughter, hunting without permission and criminal discharge of a firearm in the Dec. 15, 2007, death of 18-year-old Arndt. Kent remains free on bond and will be sentenced at 1:15 p.m. Aug. 12.
The nine women and three men began deliberating about 10:40 a.m. Thursday. They worked through lunch, and at 2 p.m., word came that they had a verdict. By 2:10 p.m., Chief Judge Merlin Wheeler was reading the verdict to a crowded, but silent, courtroom. Before delivering the verdict, he warned those in the gallery to control their emotions. They did, with only silent tears sliding down faces of those supporting Kent and tightly clenched hands on the Arndt side.
“It’s just a horrible case,” Lyon County Attorney Marc Goodman said quietly after the verdicts were read. “It’s unfortunatel that we have to enact laws for something we think people would understand without the necessity of putting a statute’s name on it.”
In rendering the verdicts, jurors apparently agreed with the state’s contention that Kent fired a rifle shot into the field at Roads 310 and D where Arndt and two friends were hidden in blinds next to a flock of goose decoys. Kent said he was firing at a coyote. But the shot hit Arndt instead, killing him quickly.
The case wasn’t as clearcut as some may have wanted. The single bullet broke into five pieces in Arndt’s body, which didn’t leave enough for experts to match to Kent’s rifle. And Kent, despite expressing remorse repeatedly to Arndt’s family, neighbors and investigators, never said that he shot Arndt. He testified that he didn’t see where the bullet he fired landed.
Instead, the state pieced together a case based on the eyewitness testimony of Derek Jackson, who was hunting with Arndt and saw a reddish orange pickup truck drive slowly by the field before stopping. He heard a shot, heard Arndt scream and saw the truck drive off.
Another witness, Angela Waner, who lives about four miles from the field, called investigators the night of the shooting. She told of helping three men in a reddish-orange pickup truck change a flat tire. She remembered that the truck had a Shawnee County license tag. Two other hunters also called in, saying that a pickup truck pulled up behind them on Road 310 near the field. The truck had three people in it and continued westbound. The Emporia hunters turned north on Road D and heard sirens of rescue personnel responding to the shooting.
All of that led investigators to Kent, a Topeka businessman who’d spent the night before the shooting with two other men at his cousin’s cabin about eight miles from the shooting site.
Throughout the trial, Kent’s attorney, Donald Hoffman, kept making the point that driving country roads with loaded rifles is common practice, as is firing at decoys set up by other hunters. Indeed, in the weeks following Arndt’s death, hunters came forward in the media with their own experiences of being shot at while hunting.
If nothing else, Goodman said he’d like to see Arndt’s death serve a greater purpose.
“On behalf of Beau, maybe anyone thinking of hunting or using a firearm illegally might learn something from this,” Goodman said, “especially in rural areas, I hope so.”
Accueil 
