Donald Ray Lewis, a 65-year-old Black jazz musician and owner of the Young Urban Jazz Café in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was reported missing on October 7, 2016. When police first checked the café they found it unlocked, the cash register emptied, and the security system forcibly removed. Investigators initially considered robbery and abduction, though no immediate evidence supported that theory.

On October 8, 2016, a search of the café’s basement turned up Lewis’s body hidden behind cardboard boxes. An autopsy determined he had been shot three times at close range. Attention quickly focused on an employee, 30-year-old Jason Small, who had been reported missing the same day. Small was found hiding in an attic crawlspace on October 8 after attempting to flee; officers recovered parts of the café’s broken DVR, blood-soaked towels and aprons, and plastic gloves in a nearby garbage bin. Forensic testing linked the blood to Lewis and fingerprints on the gloves to Small, and damaged DVR footage showed Small taking a firearm from under the counter, following Lewis toward the basement stairs, moving between the kitchen and basement, and emptying the cash register into a bag.