The Last Dance

Jones said Nicholson had told him to arrive at the party at 10:30 p.m. There was already a large crowd inside when Jones arrived. Nicholson ordered him to stay in the parking lot and direct people into the building. They were not to search anyone -- Nicholson was taking care of that with a metal-detector wand at the door. Jones said Nicholson's instructions were to come inside only to break up fights.

Jones heard the gunshots from outside. He tried to get into the hall but couldn't because there was only one entrance and everyone was rushing out. When the crowd thinned, he came in with his weapon drawn and saw Kristi Carroll lying on the floor. When Jones saw Chavis Carroll drag Kristi outside, he thought the girl was already dead.

In spite of this added witness, Fletcher decided to drop Nicholson from the case and focus solely on Haynes.

"Nicholson had nothing," he explains.

"They're looking for deep pockets," Haynes' attorney, Ed Ford, said during a break at the trial. "Unfortunately they haven't found it with my client."

Ford is a former Kansas City, Missouri, City Council member. This case, he says, has made him recall his time in office.

As chairman of the Planning and Zoning Committee, he had dealt with the issue of where teens might safely gather to socialize. During his term, members of the Westport Merchant Association appealed to the city for the right to close the entertainment district's streets to keep out underage people. The idea was run through the city's legal department, which declared that such a move would be unlawful.

"It's always a problem when you have lots of young, black teens," Ford says. "Westport doesn't want them. They've made that clear. And neighborhoods will always raise a fuss when there's lots of young, black teens.... My experience is that when the city steps in to offer a teen event, it's not very well-received," he says. "Teens are not going to go where the city's fathers and mothers want them to go.

"Arguably, the events at the banquet hall were a good thing," he continues. "It was a place where kids could go out and see and be seen. But look where it got my client."

Ford has represented Haynes for more than twenty years. Facing off against Fletcher in the early March civil trial, he was in unusual territory. Ford is usually a plaintiff's attorney.

The trial lasted three days. The Carrolls retold their stories about what happened on November 23, 2002, and tried to convey to the jury what it's been like for them in the year and a half since their daughter's death. Officer Foster and Linda Serrioz, the neighborhood COMBAT leader, both recounted their experiences with the Troostwood Banquet Hall and its owner.

Fletcher also brought in Charles Stephenson, a security consultant, as an expert witness. While he was on the stand, Fletcher handed him a thick printout from the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department. It listed all the times over the past several years when police were called to the vicinity of Troostwood -- robberies, assaults, homicides.

After reviewing the documents, Stephenson described the place as an "epicenter" for illegal activity. He said that if he were to provide security for a teen event there, he would send no fewer than six guards, preferably ten.

Then Haynes took the stand.

"I thought it was a family event," he said of the party where Kristi Carroll was shot. "No one told me there was going to be 300 people there. I have no knowledge of them charging any admission. I had personnel on hand. They didn't see anyone charging admission."

Haynes, who lives in Liberty, admitted he wasn't there that night. He said he had entrusted his staff to oversee his facility in his absence.

His staff -- one man, Eric Senir -- unwittingly provided some of the most damning testimony against Haynes.

A diabetic, Senir could barely make his way to the witness stand. He wore house slippers because his feet were swollen. His gravelly voice was barely audible. He admitted that he had stayed in the banquet hall's office during the party, away from the action, as he usually does during events. He didn't check to make sure security was in place.

"That's not my job," he said. "I be watching TV."

Besides, he doesn't see very well.

Several times, Fletcher handed him documents to read on the stand, but Senir said he couldn't read them because of his diabetes.

According to police reports, all other witnesses to the shooting agreed that several shots were fired shortly before midnight at the party. But Senir testified that he heard only one shot -- at about one in the morning, well after the place had cleared out.

The jury didn't take long to reach its verdict. It awarded the Carrolls $5 million.

Shortly after the verdict, Cynthia Carroll noticed people staring at her at the grocery store. "I'm hearing people say, 'Oh, that's the lady that's a millionaire," she says. "I'm not a millionaire. I don't look at it as myself being a millionaire."