Mike McGraw
Special Projects Reporter
Mike McGraw is the Hale Center for Journalism's special projects reporter, working on in-depth stories about various topics, including government accountability. He also works with NPR and KCUR's Harvest Public Media component on stories about Midwestern agriculture and agribusiness. He comes to KCPT after a 30-year career on The Kansas City Star's investigations team, where he and a colleague won a Pulitzer Prize for a series about the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has covered issues as diverse as the business of college sports, art forgery, the beef industry, workplace safety and wrongful convictions.
Stories by Mike McGraw
Judge Releases Defendant in 1988 Arson Deaths of 6 KC Firefighters
Bryan Sheppard, the youngest of five people sentenced to life in prison for a 1988 explosion that killed six Kansas City firefighters, will be released, possibly in the next few days, a federal judge ruled today. Members of Sheppard’s family, who packed one side of a federal courtroom here this afternoon began sobbing as…
A City Haunted by Ghost Water
It first bubbled up a year ago as a steady stream at the edge of Harry Ellis’ well-kept lawn. It flowed across the nearby roadway north of the river and splattered mud on passing cars. In the winter, it formed an icy glaze. The people from the city came. They dug down to their pipes…
Defendant in Firefighters’ Tragedy Gets a Re-Sentencing Hearing
For the first time in nearly 20 years, details of one of the city’s most enduring tragedies are about to play out once again in a Kansas City courtroom. Bryan Sheppard, one of five defendants convicted in the 1988 arson deaths of six Kansas City firefighters, will be asking a federal judge next month for…
How Gus Saved My Job
It was early in my career at The Kansas City Star, really early, and I was in dire straits. I needed help. Lots of it. I was a newly-minted labor reporter at the newspaper, and my stern and demanding editors had sent me on one of my first out-of-town reporting trips — to Kentucky and…
Victims’ Families Disappointed No Criminal Charges in Blast That Killed Six
TOPEKA, Kan. – Officials of Kansas City-based Bartlett Grain will not face criminal charges in the aftermath of a 2011 explosion at the company’s Atchison elevator that killed six workers, the U.S. Attorney for Kansas said Thursday. The announcement came just as family members of the workers who were killed emerged from a nearly 2-hour…
Five Years Later, Families of Blast Victims Still in the Dark
ATCHISON, Kan. — Five years later, the hurt is still raw for the families of six men killed when a grain elevator blew up on the banks of the Missouri River here. For them, it could have happened yesterday. “You wake up in the morning, and then you realize it’s not a bad dream —…
Trump’s 1999 Bid to Buy KC Casino Still Under Wraps
A monthslong investigation into Donald Trump’s aborted 1999 attempt to buy a Kansas City casino sits somewhere in the bowels of the Missouri State Gaming Commission in Jefferson City. But the public can’t see it. State officials estimate the size of the file at more than a thousand pages. Since January of this year, the…
Half-Staff Confusion
Tragedy upon tragedy upon tragedy seems to have overwhelmed the men and women who raise and lower Old Glory in all the places she flies across Kansas City. Indeed, the killings have been coming so fast and furious, coordination has become a problem. Yesterday, for example, the U.S. flag was at half-staff at the Federal…
Disabled Veteran Battles the VA and Wins
When Navy veteran Seth Cavin returned to civilian life in 1997, he used the GI Bill to help pay his way through architecture school, and he depended on the Department of Veterans Affairs to help treat a serious service-related back injury. “Military service gave me the confidence and drive to get through school,” he said….
Behind the Bryan Sheppard Ruling: What the Release Order Says and Doesn’t Say
A federal judge’s decision last week to release a man serving a life sentence in the 1988 deaths of six Kansas City firefighters was, at least for some of the families of those men, a hurtful betrayal by the legal system. For the families of the accused, it was the final arrival of justice long…