On July 8, 2019, 21-year-old Travon Deshaun Jones was standing on a sidewalk outside a McDonald’s near 31st Street and Van Brunt Boulevard in Kansas City when a 40-year-old man later identified as Albert P. Mangini exited a city bus, walked around Jones several times on surveillance video, then drew a weapon from his waistband and shot Jones in the back of the head. Responding officers found Jones on the sidewalk and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

After the shooting Mangini reportedly entered the passenger side of a blue BMW, brandished a handgun at the driver and demanded to be driven away, saying he was a hitman who had just done a sloppy hit. Police tracked and stopped the vehicle near Independence Avenue and Woodland Avenue and took Mangini into custody around 3:00 p.m. that same day. Prosecutors charged Mangini with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm; he was also linked to a separate shooting the previous day and faced assault and attempted robbery charges there.

By April 2022 a court found Mangini mentally unfit to proceed and suspended the criminal proceedings, ordering six-month competency evaluations; Jones’s mother, Tracy Jones, said she feared she might never see justice for her son. Did anyone in the area around 31st and Van Brunt notice something or remember seeing Travon that afternoon?