A social gathering on the evening of February 24, 2017, at a residence in the 2500 block of Bellefontaine Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, ended in deadly gunfire after a dispute over misplaced car keys. Leroy Farris, 56, was among several people socializing, drinking, and playing cards when an argument involving 44-year-old Tanya L. Starr erupted. Witnesses say Starr produced a handgun during a heated exchange, began waving it, and then struggled physically with the man she was confronting. During that struggle the weapon discharged, striking two bystanders. Farris was shot in the head and later died at Truman Medical Center; a second man was wounded in the shoulder and survived.

Starr surrendered to police after the shooting and was charged by the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office with second-degree murder, second-degree assault, and armed criminal action, with prosecutors framing the killing as occurring during the commission of another felony, the assault. Does anyone who knew Farris or was at that gathering have information that could clarify what happened in the moments before the shooting?