Roughly 25 years ago, Jennifer Lancaster and her two young daughters left her mother’s house in Topeka, Kansas. They were never seen again and their disappearance remains a mystery.
The case — which has gone nowhere for just over a quarter-century — has garnered renewed interest after a recent broadcast by the “Crime Junkie” podcast picked up the story.
However, according to Balin Schneider — a Topeka Native who now works as a documentary filmmaker in California — attempts by the media and family members to get more information about the disappearance are stymied by Kansas law.
The Kansas Open Records Act allows law enforcement to keep investigation records secret for up to 70 years.
“I work in documentary in California, you know, but I care about my hometown and my community,” Schneider said. “And I think just as Californians do, just as Missourians do, Kansans deserve a right to know. Even FOIA (the federal Freedom of Information Act) is like, way better than this.”
Attorney Max Kautsch, who works in First Amendment law, agreed.
“So in Kansas, access to criminal investigation records turns on whether the requester can prove an amorphous concept that’s undefined in the statute, which is whether or not disclosure of the records would be in the public interest,” Kautsch said. “Law enforcement, for decades, has claimed that producing criminal investigation records was basically never in the public interest, and because the statute doesn’t clearly define that term, the wiggle room that has been afforded to law enforcement has allowed for records to be withheld, even if they are arguably in the public interest. So therefore, disclosure should no longer turn on whether a requester can prove that disclosure is in the public interest. Instead, there should be an objective standard, such as in Missouri
Missouri, for example, allows case records to be open to the public after 10 years, and has very specific definitions of both “open case” and “inactive case.”
“In Missouri, records are disclosed once a case has become inactive. And the term ‘inactive’ is carefully defined under state law,” Kautsch said. “There, a case becomes inactive after 10 years, if no charges are filed, or if all appeals have been exhausted.
“So in other words, there’s little room there, except that there’s a 10-year ceiling. Criminal investigation records, police reports, and the like are all subject to disclosure after 10 years.
“Think about the positive impacts that has on transparency and trust in law enforcement, unlike in Kansas, where a law enforcement officer could reasonably expect that the information compiled in the investigation would not be in the public’s view for 70 years, long after anyone who cares about it has passed away.”
Lancaster disappearance, In Cold Blood case files hidden from public view
Indeed, Kautsch noted that the case files for the “In Cold Blood” murders of the Clutter family in 1959 have yet to pass the 70-year mark — and won’t for about five more years.
“One very interesting test of it is about to come up, because the Clutter case was resolved in 1960,” Kautsch said. “It’ll be 70 years from the Clutter case from ‘In Cold Blood,’ it’ll be 70 years in November-ish of 2030. At that point, every single record related to the ‘In Cold Blood’ files under current law will need to be disclosed.
“But, why did we have to wait 70 years for those records? If that same crime has been committed in Missouri, we’d already know everything about it, right?”
Schneider was also concerned about the length of time law enforcement is able to hold on to such records.
“For example, if a family member of someone were to go missing, or be the victim of a homicide case, and it were to remain open, the family could not get those documents for 70 years,” Schneider said. “In almost any circumstance, most of those family members would no longer be alive. That to me is a disservice to the public.”
Kautsch said that recent court cases have given a little more leeway, but not much.
Kansas law requires case documents to be disclosed if they are in the public interest. In 2021, the Wichita Eagle was seeking case files related to an alleged case of racial profiling by the Wichita Police Department and a WPD officer who allegedly had a DUI.
WPD refused to turn them over, and the Eagle sued. Chief Judge Jeffrey E. Goering decided in favor of the Eagle, ruling “this is a matter of public interest because the community at large has an expectation that police investigations will be conducted fairly and appropriately.”
Kautsch said — given there is some question by family members on the conduct of the investigation of Lancaster’s disappearance by Topeka PD — this case would almost certainly meet the standard of “public interest.”
“The judge ruled that allegations of police misconduct, or whether police acted competently and or fairly … is a question that is in the public interest, and therefore the judge ordered disclosure of the videos of those incidents, because they reflected on the competency and the ability of the police department to be fair,” he said.
The bottom line, Kautsch said, is that keeping records like the Lawrence disappearance case closed for nearly three-quarters of a century serves no one.
“There doesn’t seem to be any good reason not to allow disclosure of records for 70 years,” Kautsch said. “I mean, that is de facto, the same as permanently keeping them closed. Seventy years to keep records away from the public is effectively the same as permanent closure.”