Tyler James Burns was 19 when he died from a gunshot wound sustained during a shooting that began as a teenage feud in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The encounter near Martin Luther King Park unfolded after tensions between two groups of youths escalated; a 16-year-old, Phillip Sam, had stolen a .40-caliber handgun from his mother’s home on October 4, 2014, and then carried it to a planned confrontation. When the rival group arrived in the early hours of October 5, Sam opened fire into the group, striking Burns in the chest. Witnesses and prosecutors said Burns was wounded on the ground, pleading for his life, when Sam walked up and fired again at point-blank range, shooting through Burns’ hand and into his head. Burns died at a hospital on October 6, 2014.

Sam was charged as an adult with first-degree murder and multiple aggravated assault counts, convicted by a jury in August 2015, and remained the only person publicly tied by authorities to Burns’ killing. The case included contested sentencing and resentencing related to Sam’s age at the time of the crime, and Burns’ family later pursued a wrongful-death civil claim connected to the unsecured gun used in the shooting. Did anyone who knew Tyler or who was in Cheyenne at the time witness events around Martin Luther King Park that night?