On May 1, 2022, 27-year-old Ronald Thomas of Glen Allen, Virginia, was shot and killed while sitting in his white Mercedes-Benz SUV on West 102nd Street near Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side. The shooting occurred in broad daylight near the Frederick Douglass Houses, just steps from a playground and soccer field; Thomas was shot in the head four times at a distance of about three feet and had no time to react.

Investigators focused on a dispute that may have involved a woman both Thomas and the suspect knew, which led to charges against 24-year-old neighborhood resident Donta King, Jr. After a three-month manhunt he was arrested in Pennsylvania and returned to New York to face charges. A jury later convicted King of second-degree murder and firearms offenses, and he was sentenced to 25 years to life with concurrent terms for the weapons counts. Thomas is survived by a 15-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son; his mother, Rosemarie Johnson, read a statement expressing the family’s grief at sentencing.

Did anyone in the area see Thomas’s white Mercedes-Benz or notice anything unusual near West 102nd Street that afternoon?