Kansas
KC Unsolved: Mission to find answers decade after Kansas City homicide
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A metro woman made it her mission to bring justice to unsolved homicide cases across the Kansas City metro. She pulls inspiration from the homicide of her son, hoping that she will soon be able to experience what justice feels like in her own life.
Someone shot and killed 20-year-old Alonzo Thomas IV on April 5, 2014, near 71st and Wayne in Kansas City, Mo. The shooting, which quickly turned the neighborhood into a crime scene, happened shortly after 1 p.m. Thomas ran for help before collapsing in the doorway of a friend’s house.
At 20-years-old, Thomas was a man in the eyes of the law. His mother, Monique Willis, still only sees him as her child.
“He was my only. He was my little boy,” Willis said.
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Willis has memories of the first two decades of Thomas’ life. Memories she holds tight.
“Trying to teach him and help him and push him to greatness. He pushed pushed back every step of the way. (Laughs)”
But, instead of social media feeds and photo albums filled with pictures and other memories, Willis relies on detectives with a different type of file that contains information about the past decade of life. A decade without Thomas.
Instead of a photo album, Kansas City Police detectives have a binder of evidence. It includes phone records and information about other clues in the homicide case that may eventually be pieced together to form answers to the questions Willis has about the shooting that took her son.
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“It’s a long time. It’s a long time to not know and to (sighs) sit and breathe,” Willis said.
Key Questions
Detectives are focused on two main points in the search for Thomas’ killer.
The first are phone records.
The binder of evidence police have is filled with all kinds of phone record. The reason detectives believe the records may hold a critical key to the investigation is because Thomas received a phone call right before his death. The phone call was so important he went to 71st and Wayne where he was shot and killed minutes later.
The other piece of information police can’t locate is a white van.
“Which was described as a white van with some rust and a sliding door, so presumably a white minivan,” Sgt. Tim Fitzgerald, Kansas City Police Department Homicide Unit, said.
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Police believe Thomas may have walked over to the van to sell weed to the men inside. Then witnesses told detectives they heard a gunshot and Thomas running for help.
The problem is witnesses describe a white minivan, but no one got a license plate. The area also did not have the type of technology in place that police use now to solve cases like this one.
“Typically, in an investigation nowadays, there are street cameras everywhere. Almost everyone has a Ring Doorbell,” Fitzgerald said.
Key Clues
Instead of relying on countless angles of a homicide scene from home security cameras, detectives used what they did have at the time. They pulled dash camera video from every patrol car that answered the 911 call for help at 71st and Wayne.
They hoped the effort would pay off and show a white van driving away from the area as police responded.
No luck.
So, officers turned to Thomas’ phone records.
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Detectives said they spoke to a number of possible suspects. Every single one of those people denied being in the area of the shooting at the time Thomas died.
“So, when someone denies being there, unless we have somebody that physically saw them there and identified them, then we don’t have a lot of rebuttal to that,” Fitzgerald said.
Key Reward
Now that the case is at a standstill, police have hope money will help someone talk.
There is a reward of up to $27,000 offered in the case. Police are looking for someone the shooter confessed to, a neighbor with more information about the description of the van, someone who is brave enough to come forward and help solve this case.
“We just need that information to come in so that we can get our detectives out there to follow up on that information.”
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Following Thompson’s homicide, his mother founded the group “Momma on a Mission” following her son’s murder. The group works to help other families who end up facing the same future.
Every one of them will benefit from witnesses making the decision to pick up a phone, or send an email, to KC Crimestoppers at tips@kc-crime.org or the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS.
There are rewards offered in all unsolved homicides in the Kansas City area.
Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.
Kansas
Salvador Perez attended the Ecaudor-Curaçao match at Arrowhead. So did other royals — from the Netherlands
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Royals captain Salvador Perez, along with teammates Starling Marte and Carter Jensen, attended Saturday evening’s World Cup match at Arrowhead Stadium.
So did some other royals!
King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands began Saturday by cheering the Dutch past Sweden in Houston.
The monarchs ended the day by watching Curacao make some history against Ecuador in Kansas City.
The small island nation of Curacao is a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and that makes King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima the heads of state. So, after a quick flight north Saturday, the royal couple dutifully swapped out their bright orange scarves of Het Oranje Legioen they wore to their earlier match with bright blue ones for The Blue Wave.
Curacao, the smallest World Cup team in population and size, made its tournament debut last Sunday in a 7-1 loss to Germany. But it bounced back from that defeat to earn a 0-0 draw with La Tri and earn its first-ever point in the tournament.
“It is an extra-special World Cup because we have both the Netherlands and Curacao,” Willem-Alexander told RTL-TV. “So we have twice as many teams to cheer for. A great opportunity to cheer on both the Blues and the Oranges. All in all, it will be a special World Cup for me with two teams, and I naturally hope they go extremely far.”
The Netherlands moved one step closer to the World Cup knockout round after a 5-1 win over Sweden.
Brian Brobbey and Cody Gakpo scored two goals apiece to help coach Ronald Koeman’s team bounce back from a disappointing draw in its opener and move atop Group F. The Netherlands concludes group play against Tunisia on Thursday in Kansas City.
Curacao is still alive, too, after Eloy Room made 15 saves — one off the World Cup record — to earn a draw with Ecuador. It concludes Group E play on Thursday against the Ivory Coast in Philadelphia at the same time Ecuador is playing Germany in New York.
It is quite rare for sitting monarchs to come through the area. Queen Ann of Romania attended the dedication of the Liberty Memorial, which is where Kansas City is holding its World Cup FanFest, in the 1920s, while King Gustav XVI of Sweden made a stop in the small Kansas town of Lindsborg when he was passing through the Midwest in the 1970s.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Kansas
1 man dies after being shot June 9 in Kansas City, Missouri; police working to identify person of interest
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department is working to identify a person(s) of interest in a June 9 shooting that led to the death of one victim.
Police were called around 6 a.m. on June 9 to the area of Independence and Monroe avenues in Kansas City, Missouri.
Responding officers found an unresponsive man behind a residence in that area. He was transported to the hospital for life-threatening injuries, per KCPD.
Police were notified Friday night that the shooting victim died.
KCPD said Saturday “detectives have made headway identifying subject(s) of interest.”
Anyone with information on the incident is encouraged to call KCPD Homicide detectives directly at 816-234-5043 or the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline at 816-474-8477.
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If you have any information about a crime, you may contact your local police department directly. But if you want or need to remain anonymous, you should contact the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline by calling 816-474-TIPS (8477), submitting the tip online or through the free mobile app at P3Tips.com. Depending on your tip, Crime Stoppers could offer you a cash reward.
Annual homicide details and data for the Kansas City area are available through the KSHB 41 News Homicide Tracker, which was launched in 2015. Read the KSHB 41 News Mug Shot Policy.
Kansas
1 man killed, 5 others wounded in mass shooting Friday night near East 19th and Vine streets in KCMO
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — One person was shot to death and five others were wounded by gunfire Friday night in the 18th and Vine Historic District in Kansas City, Missouri.
Police said officers were in the area of East 18th Street and Paseo about 10:30 p.m. when they heard gunshots.
The officers moved to East 19th Street between the Paseo and Vine Street to check for shooting victims, according to a police department news release.
They found one man who had been shot and was unresponsive, along with two women who had been shot.
The man was declared dead at the scene.
One of the women suffered serious gunshot wounds and the other woman suffered non life-threatening wounds, according to the police department news release.
Officers at the shooting scene were notified three more shooting victims from the same area had been taken to a hospital by a private vehicle.
An adult male and female were reported in stable condition late Friday, while a second adult male suffered critical gunshot wounds, according to police.
Police said their preliminary investigation revealed the victims were standing on 19th Street between Vine and Paseo when people began shooting in several directions.
All the shooting victims were hit by gunfire in that area, according to police.
No word on what led to the mass shooting and at least one murder.
This is a developing story and will be updated when new information is available.
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If you have any information about a crime, you may contact your local police department directly. But if you want or need to remain anonymous, you should contact the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline by calling 816-474-TIPS (8477), submitting the tip online or through the free mobile app at P3Tips.com. Depending on your tip, Crime Stoppers could offer you a cash reward.
Annual homicide details and data for the Kansas City area are available through the KSHB 41 News Homicide Tracker, which was launched in 2015. Read the KSHB 41 News Mug Shot Policy.
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