KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The man accused of fatally attacking Kyle Van Winkle, 30, of Smithville, Mo., in the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium at a Chiefs game in December 2013 will not be sentenced to time behind bars for his actions.
Joshua T. Bradley took a plea deal, pleading guilty to first-degree involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to seven years with a suspended execution of sentence. He will serve five years of probation.
According to the probable cause, a witness reported returning to his Jeep Cherokee parked at Arrowhead’s parking lot and discovered Van Winkle passed out in the passenger seat. The witness told police he attempted to wake Van Winkle and then sent his young son to get help.
“My client, Josh Bradley, and his friends were tailgating and a little boy runs up screaming, ‘Help, help, somebody is robbing my dad.’ And so the group went up and found what we later found out to be Kyle Van Winkle had gotten in a car,” criminal defense attorney Pat Peters said.
Several people responded and an argument ensued between Van Winkle and the suspect, later identified as Bradley. According to the probable cause, Bradley began to walk away, but something was said “and he turned around and he just started hitting him.” Van Winkle fell down and witnesses reported that Bradley continued to hit Van Winkle, punching and kicking him.
“The medical examiner describes it as a very, very rare injury,” Bradley’s attorney said. “That the neck was extended and an artery to the brain began to leak.”
Authorities said Van Winkle died of “blunt force trauma.”
Bradley’s trial was supposed to start today, but instead he took a plea deal.
“Our preference would have been to be able to go to a trial without having to battle pre-trial publicity put on by the prosecutor where the true story isn’t told by the prosecutor,” Peters said.
The Van Winkle family declined to speak with FOX 4 after the hearing.
At the time of Van Winkle’s death, he and his wife were parents to a 7-week-old baby. FOX 4 spoke with his wife back in November.
“It felt like I was on the highest high of my life. We just had this family and we were this happy, perfect, boring family, and then everything just kind of crumbled around me from that point on,” Jenni Van Winkle said.
Bradley’s sentence carries a 7-year prison term if he violates his probation.
