This should have been an open and shut case.

In the early evening of Feb. 12 our mystery terrorist splashed accelerant over the windowed stretch of a large south Kansas City warehouse and started a blaze. After a moment or two, she splashed more accelerant, and the flames leaped higher.

A crew from KMBC-TV recorded the action from start to finish. As KMBC’s Andy Alcock reported, he called 911, and police and fire crews responded promptly. The woman had driven away by the time they arrived, but the TV crew captured her license plate and shared it with the police. 

This brazen, light-of-day felony wouldn’t have been a good candidate for one of 48 Hours’ unsolved crime stories. Hell, law enforcement should have closed this case in 48 minutes. But a month later, they haven’t – and herein lies the real mystery. 

By way of background, for the few weeks before the fire, all the right people in greater Kansas City had been hyperventilating over the impending sale of this warehouse by its owner Platform Ventures to the federal government for potential use as an ICE detention facility.

The same day as the fire, however, Platform Ventures execs, weary of “baseless speculations, inaccurate narratives, serious threats towards their leadership, employees and families,” pulled out of a reportedly done deal.

KMBC-TV was on site covering the denouement of this story. Our lady arsonist apparently didn’t get the memo.

She may not have cared in any case. A woman on a mission, our terrorist wannabe knowingly set her fires in full view of a TV crew. One assumes she wanted to be caught, but it seems – and I hope I’m wrong – no one has wanted to catch her.

Seeing no report of an arrest in those first few days, I contacted the Kansas City Police Department.

My first communication from KCPD suggested the notoriously woke Jackson County prosecutor’s office was involved in the case. The Jackson County Legislative chair Manny Abarca had already gone on record calling the proposed facility “a concentration camp in a community for profit.”

I expected no justice from Jackson County.

I kept trying.

“Hey Jack,” wrote the courteous KCPD public relations officer on Feb. 18, “I apologize for the delay. No, an arrest has not yet been made.”

I don’t fault the Kansas City police, but I could tell there was something weird going on.

Getting nowhere with the KCPD, I contacted the FBI, and the FBI referred me to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). This is the agency that investigates arson as well as the illegal use of firearms, explosives, and the trafficking of alcohol/tobacco. The ATF reports to the Department of Justice, and the ball, it appears, is now in ATF’s court.

On March 10 I spoke with Ashlee, a public information officer with the ATF. This was the third time we had spoken. As always, she was engaging, even amusing, but not exactly helpful.

On this occasion, I asked why arrests were made and publicized immediately after the March 7 bomb throwing incident in New York City, but in Kansas City no arrests seem to have been made at all. Nor had there been any BOLOs – Be On the Lookout – issued for the woman in question.

Ashlee told me different cases unfold in different ways. Again, she promised to update me when she had news to report.

As might be expected, the local media have shown close to zero interest in this case. With one exception, all local media had dropped the story after the first day. That exception was KMBC-TV, the station whose crew was on the scene at the warehouse. 

On March 12, I contacted Andy Alcock, the reporter who first broke the story. I was reassured to learn he had been following up but was troubled to learn that he had encountered at every step the same amiable evasiveness that I had.

I might have been more understanding had I not written the book Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6. Of the eight women I profiled who survived that fateful day – two did not – all eight were arrested on federal crimes, many of them within days of Jan. 6. 

More chilling, all eight were incarcerated, including a great-grandmother. Most of these women entered the Capitol through open doors and wandered around taking selfies. The worst “crime” any of these women committed was to break a window, and that woman, a mother of eight, was sentenced to four years in prison.

So you see, federal authorities can move quickly when inspired.

I am hoping to learn they have stayed mum on this case; all the better to break up some massive terrorist ring. But I expect to be disappointed. Too many local nabobs want the story to go away.

In the absence of media attention, all it would take is a collaborative soul or two in the ATF to grant their wishes.

Jack Cashill writes regularly at substack.com.