On January 16, 2019, postal worker Barbara Mae Harper, 71, was killed while driving home in Kansas City, Missouri, after completing a night shift. Officers responding to reports of an injury accident found her white car against a guardrail on the ramp from Interstate 70 westbound toward the downtown loop; Harper was deceased from a gunshot wound. Investigators noted bullet holes in the passenger seat headrest, shattered driver and passenger windows, and shell casings on the roadway, indicating she had been shot at while driving.

Surveillance footage showed a silver vehicle speeding behind Harper’s car just before she swerved and struck the guardrail; that vehicle exited the highway onto Harrison Street. Shell casings recovered at the Shady Lady Lounge matched those at the highway scene, and detectives concluded Harper was shot in a case of mistaken identity after her white car resembled a different vehicle involved in an earlier disturbance. Police traced the suspect car to a residence in Independence and arrested 25-year-old Dakkota Siders, who was found with two handguns; he was charged in connection with the shooting.

Harper had worked for the United States Postal Service since 1986 and was described by family as fun-loving and sociable, planning a trip to visit an ill brother in Michigan. Does anyone have information about Barbara’s last shift, the route she took, or the events near the Shady Lady Lounge that night?