Owner of shuttered TreatCo plant convicted of shooting teens who walked onto property
The owner of a shuttered Wichita pet food business who shot two teenagers who walked onto his dilapidated property in 2021 was convicted Thursday of two counts of aggravated battery following a jury trial.
Kenney “Ken” Lee Thomas, 64, who once operated the TreatCo plant at 2300 N. Broadway, is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 28. Jurors reached the guilty verdicts late Thursday morning after deliberating for around three hours, said Dan Dillon, a spokesman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.
Thomas shot the teens, 17 and 19, with a 12-gauge shotgun around 10:30 p.m. April 2, 2021, immediately after they entered his property through a hole in a chain-link fence. The teens told police they wanted to explore the fire-damaged plant, which they thought was abandoned, according to an affidavit released by the court. The property has been the site of at least three fires since 2011.
Prosecutors contended Thomas, fed up with trespassers, laid in wait for the teens after he spotted them headed toward the property and fired six shots without warning, hitting one in an arm and leg and the other on his leg, buttocks and arm.
Court records say he even pointed out the teens to a police officer who was at the property for an unrelated trespassing report, telling the cop: “I’ll go get my shotgun, rustle you up two more” and “Tell the hospital tonight you’ll have some with buckshot.”
Thomas, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, argued before his trial that he shouldn’t be prosecuted because the teens were trespassing and he was scared they might have a weapon, court records say.
Sedgwick County District Judge Christopher Magana presided over the trial.
