On January 30, 2016, 52-year-old Thomas E. Kuzila Jr., known as Swede, was found shot to death in an alley off the 100 block of Brooklyn Avenue in the Historic Northeast Pendleton Heights area of Kansas City, Missouri. Kuzila, a long-time union pipefitter with Local #533, a former 2nd Lieutenant in the National Guard, and a University of Central Missouri graduate, had been near Independence Boulevard and Prospect Avenue when he was lured or forced into the alley and suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head. His late-model Ford F-250 Harley Davidson edition pickup truck was taken after the shooting and later recovered by detectives.

Investigators identified Lorenzo D. Washington, then in his late 20s and a former Missouri prison inmate for theft, as a suspect. Washington was charged in February 2016 with first-degree murder and armed criminal action; in January 2017 he pleaded guilty to reduced charges of second-degree murder and armed criminal action and received concurrent prison terms totaling 28 years for the murder charge and three years for the armed criminal action. Does anyone in the Kansas City area have information about Kuzila’s movements that night or the truck before it was recovered?