A rap artist escaped a shooting that killed two other men inside a recording studio Wednesday in the 8100 block of Hickman Mills Drive in Kansas City.
The rapper had been dropped off at the studio by a friend about noon and apparently was eating lunch when the gunfire started. He ran out a back door and called police about 12:30 p.m. from a nearby tire shop.
Employees at the tire shop said the rapper came inside visibly upset and shaking. He told them that his friend got shot in the chest and that he barely escaped.
When officers searched the studio, they found a man believed to be one of the owners dead. They found a second victim dead in another part of the building. Police did not release their names.
The rapper didn’t recognize the shooter.
Investigators spent more than six hours collecting evidence at the scene. They said the killings didn’t appear to be planned.
Neighbors said the studio owners had been refurbishing the building, which previously contained an adult bookstore, for several months. The building had a fresh coat of paint but no sign advertising the studio’s name. A green Cadillac parked out front belonged to one of the owners, according to neighbors.
A friend of the owner said the owner had been strict about keeping the front door locked when the studio first opened, but the friend noticed on recent visits that the door was unlocked.
About five hours after those killings, a woman was killed in an apparent road-rage shooting on Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard at Elmwood Avenue. Police said the woman was westbound on Cleaver when another vehicle pulled up beside her and someone fired shots. Police were looking for an early 2000s model maroon Expedition or Explorer with tinted windows and no tags that was driven by a woman.
That killing was the seventh in Kansas City since Monday. This week’s bloodshed raised the month’s homicide total to 15, the most for a January in Kansas City since 1994, according to a homicide database kept by The Star.
Jackson County prosecutors filed criminal charges Wednesday in connection with one of the recent homicides. They accused Leroy E. Chism, 33, of pistol-whipping a friend to death Monday night because of something the friend said to Chism’s girlfriend.
Prosecutors charged Chism, of Kansas City, with second-degree murder in the death of Jachin M. Reedy, 25, who was found mortally wounded on his front porch in the 3600 block of Highland Avenue just before 10 p.m. Monday.
Reedy had been beaten on Chism’s porch and taken home, according to court records.
Court records said Reedy, Chism and another man were drinking beer and getting along until Chism confronted Reedy about something. Chism asked his girlfriend what Reedy had said to her earlier that night. She replied that Reedy said, “I got something to tell you. But I don’t know how to tell you,” after he overheard the girlfriend and a friend talking about how their boyfriends were cheating on them.
Reedy tried to calm Chism down.
“We’re better than this,” he reportedly said to Chism.
But Chism allegedly hit Reedy in the face with a gun, knocking Reedy off a porch onto a sidewalk. Chism allegedly hit Reedy a second time as Reedy lay defenseless on the ground. Then Chism allegedly chambered a round and pointed the gun at Reedy’s forehead, prompting a friend to beg him not to shoot. Chism went into his home, washed his hands and fled. The friend carried Reedy to Reedy’s home and called for an ambulance.
Police arrested Chism on Tuesday night. He denied hitting the victim. Police found a bloody T-shirt and blood on the sink in Chism’s apartment.
Also on Wednesday, Kansas City police identified a man found shot to death inside his barbershop Tuesday afternoon as Darrell R. Williams, 40, of Kansas City.
A woman who went to the shop at 3108 Troost Ave. for a haircut found his body on the floor. People at neighboring businesses did not hear any gunshots. Police said Williams probably had been killed within an hour or so of the discovery of his body.
Williams got into frequent disputes with neighboring store owners, police and neighbors said. He mostly cut hair for friends and relatives, police and neighbors said.
Police did not release any motive or suspect information in that killing.
| Christine Vendel, cvendel@kcstar.com
