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Three men allegedly kidnapped and killed 18-year-old Keighley Ann Alyea of Overland Park. Her body was found in a farm field in Cass County, Missouri, in October. The three men were charged with first-degree murder in Johnson County. One of the men, 18-year-old Dustin Hilt, was reportedly an ex-boyfriend.
The violence even hit home at City Hall. Anthony Mosley, a building maintenance worker, was stabbed to death on May 21 during a drug-house robbery at East 38th Street and Olive. Mosley reportedly had a large wad of cash on him. Mosley was later honored at a City Council meeting — by the same politicians who had spent the winter and early spring months threatening to cut the police budget.
Several of this year's victims were from the same family. Some family members killed each other.
Odell Nelson, 27, is accused of killing his younger brother, Dominique Nelson. Prosecutors say Odell pulled out a gun and shot his brother "multiple" times during an argument and didn't stop shooting after his brother was on the ground.
Dominique, meanwhile, was scheduled to go on trial for murder. He was the alleged driver in a drive-by shooting that killed 17-year-old Joe M. Theus in 2007.
Mothers killed their children, sons killed their mothers, and husbands killed their wives.
Before the end of January, 26-year-old Lecletia Hardy drowned her 17-month-old daughter, Lailah, in the Little Blue River and then killed herself.
A week after that murder-suicide, Nick and Rebecca Candler were accused of starving to death their 4-month-old son, Jeremiah.
On February 7, Lakeesha Brown told police that she didn't know why she suffocated her 7-year-old son, Esmond Ross Jr., by placing her legs across his head and sitting on his chest. Brown had previously told police that Ross suffocated after she rolled on top of him while sleeping. Prosecutors charged Brown with second-degree murder.
Michael Adams Jr., a cross-dresser from Belton, allegedly shot and killed the mother of his two children in mid-July.
Many of Kansas City's homicide victims and suspects came from families with violent histories.
On April 25, 17-year-old Teri'yonna Stevenson was shot and killed at 3627 Michigan. Her cousin, Raheem Marchbanks, was shot and killed on June 8. Prosecutors have charged their cousin, Dshawn L. Marchbanks, with second-degree murder for allegedly killing 26-year-old Eric Taylor 13 days later. Police found Taylor shot in the driver's seat of a red 1993 Ford Thunderbird at the intersection of 35th Street and Agnes; he was pronounced dead at an area hospital.
He hasn't been charged, but court records indicate that Kansas City police detectives believe Diamond Blair, 33, shot and killed Montague K. Ashline during a robbery in September.
The murderous Blair family has been contributing to the city's death toll for decades.
Diamond Blair's grandmother, Janice Billie Blair, fatally shot her common-law husband, Elton Gray, in 1978, according to a September 2004 Kansas City Star story titled "Family's history awash in blood." Police officers noted that six small children were watching television just steps away from the paramedics who were trying to revive Gray. Janice Blair pleaded guilty to murder but received five years of probation due to mental illness.
Six months after his mother killed Gray, Walter Blair Jr. (Diamond Blair's uncle) was charged in the death of 16-year-old Sandy L. Shannon, whose body was found in a snowbank in the 2300 block of Olive. Shannon died from a shotgun blast to the back, The Star reported. Prosecutors charged Walter Blair Jr. with capital murder, but the case was dropped when witnesses refused to testify. In August 1979, Walter Blair Jr., then 18, confessed to shooting Kansas City Art Institute student Katherine Jo Allen in the head, killing her as she begged for her life. In 1993, the state of Missouri executed Walter Blair Jr., then 32, for killing Allen in a murder-for-hire plot.
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