On the evening of April 18, 2014, Kavyea Curry, 34, was sitting in the driver’s seat of his vehicle at a BP station at 4501 Cleveland Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, with his 10-year-old son, Ka'Vyea Tyson-Curry, and an unrelated 5-year-old boy. A lone gunman approached the driver’s side window and fired multiple shots into the car. Curry was struck and pronounced dead at the scene. The 10-year-old was critically wounded when a bullet pierced his spine and was left paralyzed from the chest down; the 5-year-old in the back seat was physically unharmed but witnessed the shooting.

Police concluded the attack was likely retaliatory. Investigators linked the motive to Curry’s 2004 testimony in an armed-robbery case in Grandview, Missouri; the man convicted in that case had been released from prison months before the April 2014 shooting. Authorities identified the shooter as Dontae D. Jefferson, who was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, unlawful use of a weapon, and multiple counts of armed criminal action. Prosecutors used surveillance video and testimony about the men’s history at trial.

A jury convicted Dontae Jefferson of all charges in August 2017; at sentencing in October 2017 the court imposed life without parole for the murder plus consecutive life terms for the other offenses. Anyone with information about Kavyea Curry, his son Ka'Vyea Tyson-Curry, or this case is asked to come forward.