KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Five years after a Brookside lawyer was gunned down in his front yard, the trial begins for 84-year-old suspect David Jungerman.

In emotional testimony Tuesday, Tom Pickert’s widow recalled hearing the gunshot then finding her husband dead.

“Someone just shot and killed my husband in our front yard,” the 911 call from that day played out loud in court. 

The man prosecutors believe Jungerman had just lost a civil lawsuit worth nearly $6 million to Pickert’s client. 

“I saw blood coming from his head. He wasn’t moving. I just started screaming,” said Emily Riegel, Pickert’s wife.

Prosecutors wasted no time Tuesday laying out why they believe Jungerman killed Pickert minutes after Pickert had walked his two sons to school. They point to video of what they said was Jungerman’s van leaving the scene.

“The white van in this surveillance video has the two after-market distinctive metal in the rear just like Jungerman’s van,” one prosecutor said.

But the defense refuted the state’s case, saying that’s not Jungerman’s van. They also challenged an audio recording where prosecutors said Jungerman can be heard saying, “I killed that son of a b****.”

It’s an audio recording that Jungerman’s lawyers said is incomplete.

“You know what’s wrong with that report? Twenty-eight minutes are missing; 25% of that recording is not there,” the defense said.

Prosecutors brought seven witnesses for testimony, including one of the first officers on the scene. A KCPD crime scene technician also testified they didn’t find any bullets or shell casings, and Pickert was on the phone with when he was gunned down.

“I heard a thump, and then I didn’t hear anything,” said Andrew Leroy, the attorney Pickert was on the phone with when he was killed.

Even before prosecutors began laying out their case, Jungerman’s lawyers began planting seeds of doubt for jurors.

In opening statements, they promised evidence that police had a bias against their client.

“We’re confident based on undeniably unfair treatment of my client with a bias conformation,” one of Jungerman’s defense lawyers said. 

Day 2 of the trial will start at 8 a.m. Tuesday, with the expectation that the jury will get the case and begin deliberations starting in the middle of next week.