Sergeant Michael R. King was 50 and a 25-year veteran of the University City Police Department when he was ambushed on the night of October 31, 2008, in the Delmar Loop. Around 10:20 p.m. he was sitting in his marked patrol car at Leland Avenue and Delmar Boulevard completing paperwork when a gunman walked up and fired at point-blank range. Sergeant King was struck multiple times and died of his wounds.

Witnesses and evidence quickly pointed to a gray or light blue 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass with Missouri plates. Five days after the shooting, the Missouri State Highway Patrol stopped a vehicle matching that description and arrested the driver, identified as Todd Sheppard, who was 41 at the time. Sheppard later admitted the killing and said he had targeted Sergeant King as part of a premeditated plan to incite a racial revolution.

A jury convicted Sheppard in April 2011 of first-degree murder and armed criminal action; the judge imposed two consecutive life sentences without parole. Did anyone in the Delmar Loop that night notice the Cutlass or remember seeing activity around Leland and Delmar before the shooting?