Sarah Blessing was 37 when she was shot and killed at her Raytown, Missouri shop on the afternoon of May 7, 1992. She had recently opened The Shop of Many Colors in the Woodson Village Shopping Center and was found in a back room after a witness heard a sound like a gunshot. A small amount of cash was taken from the register.

Ballistics tied the same .22-caliber handgun used in her killing to a string of murders across Indiana, Kansas, and Missouri; the victims were typically female clerks working alone in small stores near Interstate 70. Witnesses described the suspect as a white male in his mid-20s to mid-30s, slender, with light brown or reddish hair, who was seen walking away toward an access road for Interstate 70 after the shooting.

No arrests have been announced and the case remains open.