Kyce Barnes was 39 when he was found dead on the morning of August 21, 2024, in the trunk of a white Mercedes discovered in a vacant lot in the 8200 block of West Irving Street in Wichita, Kansas. Barnes, a Black man who had been released from the Sedgwick County Jail just hours earlier, was wrapped in blood-stained bedding and had multiple gunshot wounds to his upper and lower body.

Detectives identified room 141 at the Deluxe Motel, 8401 W. Kellogg Drive, as the site where the events leading to Barnes’s death took place. Investigators say an altercation involving Barnes and an 18-year-old woman preceded the shooting. Court documents link the motive to the young woman, who had been involved with both the victim and 23-year-old Daitrez Birch, a man known to Barnes and whose family was reportedly close to Barnes’s family.

Authorities allege Birch shot Barnes and, with help from others, cleaned the motel room and moved the body to the car’s trunk. Two other people, Taryn Bowman and Demetrius Hill, were charged with concealing or destroying evidence; Bowman later pleaded guilty and received probation. Does anyone have information about Barnes’s movements that morning or about the motel room prior to the discovery?