Kansas
Kansas City barbecue pitmaster Arthur Lee Sr. killed in hit-and-run crash while riding his scooter
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Kansas City barbecue pitmaster Arthur Lee Sr. was killed in an early morning hit-and-run crash while riding his scooter March 21.
Kansas City barbecue pitmaster Arthur Lee Sr. killed in hit-and-run crash
Lee was turning left from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard onto Eastwood Trafficway when a car ran a red light and hit him. A small memorial now grows at the intersection.
Chris Morrison
“Devastated. Everybody’s hurt, it was really unexpected,” his son Arthur Lee Jr. said. “I loved him to death. My dad was like my best friend.”
Lee was well known in the barbecue community, working as a pitmaster at Gates Bar-B-Q for the past eight years after spending two decades at Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque.
“He loved working at Gates,” Rose Qualls, Lee’s sister-in-law, said. “He was always making us slabs and turkey sandwiches.”
Chris Morrison
The morning of the incident, Lee was preparing to move into a new home with his wife and children, getting ready for a fresh start before a tragic end.
“He was really special, you know. He was one of a kind and everybody that he was around just loved him,” Qualls said. “It’s just a sad situation.”
Lee was 60 years old. His family said while his life was cut short, his flame will burn forever.
“My sister, she is really going through it, we all are,” Qualls said. “And I’m here for her, whatever she needs, when she need a shoulder to cry on, I’m here.”
Courtesy of Arthur Lee Jr.
The family is pleading for answers and for the driver, who fled the scene, to come forward.
“I would pray that they would have some type of compassion, some type of heart, possibly turn themselves in,” Lee Jr. said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Bates County Circuit Court judge Friday sentenced a Linn County, Kansas, man in connection with the December 2025 death of Airen Andula, 13.
Damon Leonard, 47, was sentenced to four years in prison for abandonment of a corpse, according to court records.
He pleaded guilty to the charge of abandoning a corpse on May 22.
Andula disappeared from his Pleasanton, Kansas, home on Dec. 21, 2025. A day later, law enforcement found the boy’s body in a ravine in Bates County, Missouri. He had died from multiple dog bite injuries.
Police were led to the boy’s body after a phone call from Leonard.
Court documents said Leonard “admitted that he transported the deceased child from Kansas to Missouri and left the body in the bottom of the creek” before he returned home.
KSHB 41 reporter Fernanda Silva spoke with Andula’s family earlier this week — after the guilty plea and ahead of Friday’s sentencing.
His family shared that the guilty plea brought a small sense of justice, but it didn’t do much to ease the pain of their loss.
READ MORE | Family of Airen Andula speaks out ahead of sentencing
“We’re missing our kid every day of our lives,” the boy’s father Charles Andula told Silva.
Leonard received credit for time served of 158 days in his sentence, per court records.
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TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – It may not seem like a lot of relief, but gas and diesel prices have declined over the past week.
Friday morning’s national average for a gallon of unleaded gas was $4.39, according to the Automobile Association of America.
That’s down three cents from $4.42 on Thursday; down 16 cents from a week ago; but was up 17 cents from $4.22 a month ago and up $.23 from $3.16 a year ago.
In Kansas, AAA says, unleaded gas on Friday was averaging $3.96 a gallon — down four cents from $4.00 on Thursday; down 13 cents from $3.96 a week ago; but up 26 cents from $3.70 a month ago; and up $1.07 over $2.89 a year ago.
Diesel fuel also was dropping in price. AAA says Friday’s national average for a gallon of diesel was $5.52 a gallon — down three cents from $5.55 on Thursday; down 12 cents from $5.64 a week a go; but up six cents from $5.46 a month ago and up $1.98 from $3.54 a year ago.
Kansas diesel fuel prices, according to AAA, checked in at an average of $4.98 on Friday. That’s five cents below $5.03 on Thursday; down 16 cents from $5.14 a week ago; but up 24 cents over $4.74 a month ago; and up $1.72 from $3.26 a year ago.
In Topeka, GasBuddy.com on Friday morning showed unleaded gas prices ranging between $3.77 and $4.09 in Topeka, with diesel fuel going for between $4.94 and $5.29 a gallon.
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