Monday, a 47-year-old man was found guilty of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 40-year-old wife, Tabitha Birdsong. She was found in Kansas City’s Roanoke Park, stabbed to death, with an order of protection against her husband in her back pocket.
After a jury trial, Gene A. Birdsong of Kansas City, Kansas, was found guilty of murder and one felony count of armed criminal action, prosecutors in Jackson County said Monday. He has been in the Jackson County jail since the day he was arrested for killing his wife.
Under Missouri law, anyone convicted of first-degree murder must serve at least life in prison without the chance of parole. Monday, the jury said that Birdsong should spend the rest of his life in prison, plus 17 more years.
The dead body of Tabitha Birdsong was found on November 6, 2018. Court papers say that when Kansas City police officers found her, she had obvious head injuries and showed no signs of life.
Witnesses told the police that Tabitha and Gene Birdsong were together right before she died and that Tabitha had been physically abused in the past. People who saw Birdsong that day also said he was wearing khaki pants that looked like they had blood on them. One person said that his clothes were “soaked in blood.”
Years before Tabitha Birdsong was killed, Gene Birdsong was found guilty of domestic violence against her twice in Johnson County District Court, once in 2009 and again in 2010. In 2015, she went to court in Johnson County to get an order of protection because she was afraid for her safety.
In 2016, Gene Birdsong was charged in Johnson County with breaking a protection order that Tabitha Birdsong had gotten in Wyandotte County. Gene Birdsong also spent 86 days in jail for breaking his probation in that case. He was let out of jail in June 2018, about five months before Tabitha Birdsong was killed.
Here is the post by twitter fromThe Kansas City Star Tabitha Birdsong, 40, was found stabbed to death near Kansas City’s Roanoke Park on Nov. 6, 2018. She had an order of protection against her estranged husband in her back pocket.
Tabitha Birdsong, 40, was found stabbed to death near Kansas City’s Roanoke Park on Nov. 6, 2018. She had an order of protection against her estranged husband in her back pocket. https://t.co/wLmTa6XmFt
— The Kansas City Star (@KCStar) February 28, 2023
Melinda Henneberger, who used to write for the Star, wrote columns about the killing of Tabitha Birdsong. These columns were about domestic abuse and how the criminal justice system handles cases like this. In 2019, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced a new intervention plan to stop domestic violence homicides by taking “the worst of the worst” abusers off the street.
In a statement released on Monday, Baker thanked the people on her trial team for their hard work and for moving the case forward. She also said that everyone should think about Tabitha Birdsong first on Monday because she “died at the hands of the person who abused her at home.”
Baker said, “It’s clear that nothing we could do would bring her back.” But we were proud to fight for her.
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