Prison City Murders – Case 9 – A Man on Fire

February 5, 1979. Kansas City, Missouri. The marriage of Wanda Conkling and William Cadwalader is abusive: he beats her–she leaves him–he apologizes–they make up—he beats her… and on and on …  In early 1979, they are in one of the “let’s make up” phases. They plan a short vacation. They pack their bags and get ready to head out for the airport. Tragically, they open their front door to a murderer. Sources: This episode is based on a series of newspaper articles from the Kansas City Star (October 2018) called “A Man on Fire.” It’s a very good job of investigative reporting. It’s in 6 parts and they’re well worth looking at. I did some of my own digging, but much of the information is from these articles. The photos and videos that accompany the articles are very good, too. The reporters are Ian Cummings, Glenn E Rice, and Tony Rizzo. I recognize Tony Rizzo’s name—he’s kind of an ace crime reporter. The link is below. https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article216751240.html https://www.kcur.org/post/5-little-known-historic-mob-locations-kansas-city#stream/0 https://www.drphil.com/advice/sexual-predator-warning-signs/ https://fox4kc.com/2016/08/06/woman-found-dead-in-northland-apartment-fire-leading-to-homicide-investigation/ https://www.kansascity.com/ https://kansascity.newsbank.com https://newspaperarchive.com/us/kansas/olathe/olathe-daily-news https://www.newspapers.com/ https://www.ancestry.com/ https://www.genealogybank.com/ https://www.findagrave.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ https://www.stltoday.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KJIkXuK7js https://ganglandwire.com