On September 22, 2021, Justin Jonathan Goolsby, 32, was fatally shot while waiting in his vehicle at a Pilot Travel Center on East Austin Boulevard in Nevada, Missouri. He had gone to the gas station for a scheduled child custody exchange. While Goolsby waited, 62-year-old Steven Sam Vignolo, the child’s grandfather, approached and fired multiple rounds into the vehicle, striking Goolsby in the chest. Goolsby was taken to Nevada Regional Medical Center and pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

Witnesses saw the shooter flee on foot; officers from the Nevada Police Department and the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office apprehended Vignolo at a nearby Burger King. A .45 caliber handgun, believed to be the murder weapon, was recovered from a bush where Vignolo had discarded it. Vignolo admitted to the shooting and said his motive involved allegations that Goolsby had inappropriately touched his granddaughter, but authorities reported Goolsby was not on sex offender registries in Missouri or Kansas and those claims were unsubstantiated in the murder case.

Vignolo was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action and held without bond. The victim’s fiancée said the custody exchange plans had been abruptly changed by the child’s mother that day, which led Goolsby to the location of the ambush. Does anyone have information about the exchange that day or saw activity at the Pilot Travel Center around the time of the shooting?