LeRoy M. Hoffman was a 52-year-old coin dealer in Kansas City, Missouri, who was killed inside his shop on March 12, 1988. The visit that turned deadly was reported as what appeared to be a robbery; coins worth several thousand dollars were missing afterward. Family reports said Hoffman had mentioned a local farmer who’d been asking about selling a large collection, a detail that fits accounts describing a stranger who had been patient and familiar rather than a smash-and-grab thief.

Investigators and reporters later linked Hoffman’s killing to a pattern of coin-shop robberies and shootings in several states, often involving a personable man who would visit repeatedly and then return near closing time to rob and shoot, commonly with a small-caliber firearm and a head wound. Charles T. Hoffman’s case remained unsolved and part of that wider constellation of coin-shop crimes.

Did anyone who knew LeRoy Hoffman, his shop, or customers from that time ever see a stranger matching this pattern visiting the store?