De’Anthony Wiley was expected to testify on his own behalf in his first degree murder trial for the January 2015 killing of She’s A Pistol Proprietor Jon Bieker. Wiley is claiming self-defense.
In a special to the Sentinel, a reliable observer who has attended the trial from the beginning reports that Wiley, while in a small holding room at the Johnson County Courthouse alone with his two attorneys, collapsed and was rushed to the Olathe Medical Center late Thursday morning.
Wiley, who was shot by Bieker in the incident, is paralyzed from the diaphragm down. He is claiming that he was on the ground inside She’s A Pistol, unable to move, and was attempting to give up when he shot Bieker, who was advancing on him. He was one of four men charged in the incident. One of the other men has already been convicted of first degree murder.
The observer reports that the trial was not going well for Wiley. Using the imagery from the store’s eight surveillance, cameras prosecutors put together a second by second montage that allegedly showed Wiley as the aggressor.
The observer was unaware of what caused Wiley’s collapse–stress from a trial going sideways–may have had something to do with it. There is a great deal of uncertainty as well about whether Wiley will be able to testify in his own defense as he had planned to. However weak his case may be, the fact that he has to make it from a wheel chair will not hurt his cause.
This story has not yet made it into the local news. We will confirm its accuracy as soon as we are able, but our observer was very close to the scene. The fact that a man paralyzed as a result of his own crimes faces a life in prison speaks to the extraordinary cost of crime, in lives ruined and in dollars wasted.
