Widow of Kansas City musician sues feds for neglect, COVID pandemic

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The widow of a popular Kansas City-area musician has filed a lawsuit, accusing the National Institutes of Health of playing a role in her husband’s death.

The lawsuit is an outside-the-box approach that is possibly the first of its kind in the country.

Jimmy Dykes died of COVID-19 in November 2020. When Dykes got the virus, his hospital stay lasted weeks. As the music community rallied around him, his wife, Leann Dykes, expressed hope for his recovery during an interview with FOX4.

“They put him in a coma, and he’s sedated. And he’s intubated. And they’re just working tirelessly to bring him back,” Leann Dykes said during a November 2020 interview.

He died soon after.

Now her lawsuit places the blame for his death on individuals, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, and federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health.

At its core, the lawsuit demands damages, saying those people and agencies are responsible for leaking the virus from a Chinese lab in Wuhan where experiments were funded by the U.S. government.

The lawsuit states that narrative plainly, but the views are controversial. Scientists remain divided on the origin of COVID-19.

The attorney representing Leann Dykes has not returned FOX4’s calls for comment on the lawsuit.

For an outsider’s view, FOX4 connected with UMKC School of Law professor Allen Rostron who described the lawsuit as “ambitious,” facing an uphill battle, and possibly brought to “make a point.”

“You know, sometimes they have an agenda, and I don’t mean that in a pejorative way. Lawsuits can draw attention to problems. They can be used that way. And to some extent this has the feeling,” Rostron said.

“Eventually, though, as your lawsuit moves forward, you have to provide proof. I would say that would be a challenge in this case because it is taking on these big international issues, which have a lot of unknown aspects to them. I mean there’s real uncertainty and doubt in how COVID arose and what role things played in that,” Rostron said.

The federal government has not yet responded to the lawsuit.