Karter Makenzie Alderman was 17 when he was shot through the front door of a small house on North Aydelotte Avenue in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in the early hours of March 14, 2015. He had been at a gathering of friends at 2227 North Aydelotte, near the Oklahoma Baptist University campus, when a masked man with a gun forced the door and fired through the narrowing crack. The bullet struck Karter in the head while he sat in the living room; he was taken to hospital but died from his wound.

Authorities identified 25-year-old Aaron Bernard Bradford as the shooter and said he approached the house intending to commit a robbery. Reports say he was arrested two days later in Lawton; prosecutors later alleged he and two others had gone to the home to steal money and drugs. Bradford was tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life without parole, and that outcome was affirmed on appeal in November 2017.

Karter’s October 1997 birthdate and a long list of surviving family members were noted in his obituary. The community held fundraisers and a balloon release in his memory.