On the morning of December 1, 2021, deputies in Franklin County, Missouri, found 18-year-old Kiley Kennedy of Eureka lying near a vehicle at State Highway 100 and Country Air Drive in Pacific. She was a senior in high school and had sustained a single gunshot wound to the chest; she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators concluded Kennedy had been directed to that location by acquaintances and that an altercation over money and narcotics escalated into violence. A 9mm handgun seized from a Pacific residence was identified by ballistics experts as the likely weapon. Two teenagers were arrested, charged as adults, and prosecutors filed second-degree murder and first-degree robbery counts against both; one defendant also faced armed criminal action.

The case proceeded through the courts, and in January 2025 one defendant, Michael Drake, pleaded guilty to the murder and received a 25-year prison sentence.