Horrific Winfield Family Shooting Leaves Six Dead

Topeka Expands Data Center Moratorium

Marion Settles Reporter’s Raid Suit for $850,000

Former KU Professor Files Second Lawsuit

Oak Park Mall Plans Mixed-Use Redevelopment

Horrific Winfield Family Shooting Leaves Six Dead

WINFIELD, Kan. — Winfield police said Ronald H. Williams Sr., 53, called 911 at about 8:50 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, and told a dispatcher he had killed his family and intended to kill himself. The first officer to reach the home in the 400 block of West Ninth Avenue heard a single gunshot, and officers established a perimeter before forcing open the front door at 10:57 a.m. and finding six people dead. Police identified the victims as Kelly L. George, 44, and four children — Carol A. Williams, 9; Ronald H. Williams Jr., 7; Sarah K. Williams, 5; and Kelly M. Magee-Williams, 3 — and investigators believe Williams shot them before calling 911 and then died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is working with Winfield police and said there is no continuing threat to the public; Williams had a lengthy Kansas criminal record and was a registered sex offender following a 1998 conviction for attempted indecent liberties with a child. Kansas and federal law prohibit people with felony convictions from possessing firearms, but authorities have not said how Williams obtained the gun, and his death means the investigation will provide the only public accounting because no prosecution will occur in a case that ranks among the deadliest single crimes in modern Kansas history.

KWCH · KAKE · KSN · WIBW · KCTV5

Topeka Expands Data Center Moratorium

TOPEKA, Kan. — The Topeka City Council on Aug. 11 amended its 12-month data center moratorium to include city utility service for projects outside the city limits. The council unanimously approved the original measure July 14, temporarily stopping consideration of new data centers and battery storage facilities within Topeka for one year. The amendment is aimed at a proposed Compass Datacenters development near Southwest 77th Street and Burlingame Road, a site outside the city boundary that would depend on Topeka-controlled utilities. Council members are scheduled to meet with the company in a special work session Aug. 19, and the mayor previously defended holding data center meetings without public comment. Large data centers require substantial electricity and water capacity, and the change prevents a developer from bypassing the city’s pause by building just beyond the boundary while relying on city infrastructure.

WIBW · KSNT

Marion Settles Reporter’s Raid Suit for $850,000

MARION, Kan. — Attorneys for Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn and the city of Marion filed a motion Aug. 11 to dismiss her federal civil rights lawsuit after the city agreed to pay her $850,000, exactly three years after police raided the newspaper. During the Aug. 11, 2023, raid, Marion officers searched the Record office and the homes of publisher Eric Meyer and a city council member and seized journalists’ phones and computers; Meyer’s 98-year-old mother died the next day. Zorn’s routine check of a local restaurant owner’s driving record was cited as justification for the search, and the city payment is separate from a $3 million Marion County settlement approved in November 2025 that included $600,000 for Zorn and preceded her retirement from the paper. The publicly reported settlements now total about $3.85 million, but the agreements end the cases without a court ruling on the raid’s legality, while the federal Privacy Protection Act sharply limits searches of journalists’ materials. The costs fall on a city of fewer than 2,000 residents and a county of about 12,000 and give Kansas local governments, law enforcement agencies and insurers a concrete financial measure of the risks involved in searching a working newsroom.

Kansas Reflector · Kansas Public Radio · KWCH · KCUR

Former KU Professor Files Second Lawsuit

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Feng “Franklin” Tao, a former tenured University of Kansas chemical engineering professor prosecuted under the U.S. Justice Department’s China Initiative, filed a second federal lawsuit against KU on July 21. The initiative began in 2018 to pursue suspected Chinese economic espionage, drew criticism for cases involving academics’ grant-disclosure paperwork and ended in 2022. Tao alleges KU violated state and federal workplace discrimination protections, damaged his reputation and career prospects, and retaliated against him for a 2025 lawsuit seeking reinstatement. Court documents allege KU worked with the FBI to arrange a surprise search of Tao’s lab and home and that a visiting scholar demanded $300,000 from him in 2019 over authorship credit before anonymously reporting him for economic espionage when he refused. Tao was among the first academics arrested under the initiative and was convicted before the conviction was overturned on appeal; the new allegations have not been tested in court, and KU’s response has not been reported. He seeks lost wages and unspecified damages for reputational harm, emotional distress, and pain and suffering, putting the conduct of a Kansas Board of Regents institution during a federal investigation before a judge and exposing the university to potential financial liability.

Lawrence Journal-World · Kansas Reflector · News From the States

Oak Park Mall Plans Mixed-Use Redevelopment

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Oak Park Mall LLC, a subsidiary of Chattanooga, Tennessee-based CBL Properties, has submitted plans to redevelop the 89-acre mall property at 95th Street and Quivira Road into a mixed-use district. The proposal includes a four-story, 260-unit apartment complex with two courtyards, a pool and outdoor seating; a four-story, 120-room hotel; additional restaurants and park space; and a three-level theater and conference center for The Culture House with ground-floor space for Culture House Academy. A stormwater memo submitted with the application says replacing asphalt parking with green space would reduce runoff from the property. The plan has not been approved, and the Overland Park Planning Commission postponed an Aug. 10 public hearing on the revised preliminary development plan until Sept. 14 at the applicant’s request; the proposal must still clear the commission and City Council. Oak Park Mall has sought a new direction since Nordstrom’s departure as enclosed malls nationwide have added housing and entertainment after anchor stores closed. The proposal would add hundreds of apartments and a hotel to one of the largest commercial parcels in Kansas’ most populous county, potentially reshaping a major Johnson County retail center and testing the city’s willingness to approve denser housing there.

KCTV5 · KSHB 41 · FOX4KC

Sources

1. KWCH / KAKE / KSN / WIBW / KCTV5
2. WIBW / KSNT / WIBW / KSNT
3. Kansas Reflector / Kansas Public Radio / Kansas Reflector / KWCH / KCUR
4. Lawrence Journal-World / Kansas Reflector / News From the States
5. KCTV5 / KSHB 41 / FOX4KC

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