Murder trial opens in death of Steckline employee

Daniel Flores was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher because he caught his killer scrawling hate-filled messages about a woman named Lisa and her new beau on the walls in a basement hallway of Steckline Communications, 1632 S. Maize Road.

His killer, who prosecutors say is 32-year-old Antwon Banks, was angry that his relationship with his girlfriend – a Steckline officer manager named Lisa Bryce – had ended and wanted to threaten and humiliate her in front of her co-workers, prosecutors said.

“The defendant planned and carried out Daniel’s death to cover up what he had done,” prosecutor Mandee Schauf said.

But Banks’ attorney said security camera footage that places her client at the radio station the night Flores died didn’t capture a killer; it captured a man eager to find important papers he thought were hidden by his former girlfriend after their breakup – a man who left not knowing that a gruesome crime had or would be committed the same night.

“Antwon Banks was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” court-appointed defense attorney Lacy Gilmour said.

Those were the allegations a Sedgwick County jury heard Tuesday afternoon during opening statements in the first-degree murder trial of Banks, who is accused of killing Flores sometime after 8 p.m. on Feb. 9, 2014. The 25-year-old Flores helped take care of computer equipment and audio equipment for taped broadcasts at the Steckline Communications building, which houses radio stations and an agricultural network. His body was found at around 8 a.m. on Feb. 10 by a co-worker. Flores was working the night he died.

According to testimony Tuesday from a police officer and crime scene investigator, Flores was found lying face-down in a basement hallway of the radio station with his feet blocking the lower level’s entry door and the hood of a sweatshirt covering multiple gashes to his head.

An investigation revealed he had been bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher missing from where it had hung near his body, according to testimony. The force of the beating knocked out several of Flores’ teeth.

In addition to a tab from a fire extinguisher and what was likely some of the white powder inside found near his body was a black permanent marker that had been used to write derogatory messages and death threats on three of the hallway’s walls, according to testimony.

Banks has pleaded not guilty.

Schauf told jurors the killing was motivated by Banks’ obsession with his former girlfriend and by pride. Security camera footage from a business across the street, she said, filmed him getting out of the passenger door of a vehicle and going into the station building that evening, then returning “after a long period of time.”

The woman driving the car, Schauf said, would testify that Banks was out of breath and was carrying a fire extinguisher when they left.

Police arrested Banks three days later during a traffic stop on North Woodlawn after receiving a Crime Stoppers tip, authorities have said. He reportedly stabbed himself in the stomach during the stop.

Gilmour dismissed the contention that Banks was obsessed, saying he had moved on from the 14-month “on-again, off-again” relationship he had shared with Bryce. The woman who drove him to the radio station the night Flores was killed was his new girlfriend, she said. The woman, Gilmour said, plans to testify there was “nothing notable” about Banks except him being out of breath, which he attributed to aging, when he came back to the car.

She also noted that despite dozens of DNA swabs, analysis of fibers found on Flores’ body and other investigation techniques, there’s no forensic evidence that links Banks to the crime scene. The murder weapon, Gilmour added, was never found.

Testimony will resume Wednesday morning at the Sedgwick County Courthouse. District Judge Bruce Brown is presiding.

This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 9:10 PM with the headline "Murder trial opens in death of Steckline employee."