Emmanuel Osei

Friends remembered Emmanuel Osei as a loving husband and a father to two young children. The 25-year-old Black man, known to many as "Big E," was a 2009 graduate of Licking Heights High School in Pataskala, where he had been a football player who wore number 49. One high school friend described him as "one of the funniest characters you'd know," someone who would play a joke on you and want you to get him back. Another simply called him a "loving guy."

On the night of February 29, 2016, police in Columbus, Ohio, received a call at approximately 11:59 PM about a man lying in a parking lot. Officers were dispatched to a Chase Bank branch at 2475 S. Hamilton Road, where they found Emmanuel Osei near an ATM. He was critically injured, suffering from an apparent gunshot wound.

Emergency medical personnel were summoned to the scene, but Osei’s injuries were too severe. He was pronounced deceased at 12:15 AM, in the early moments of March 1, 2016.

The news of his death left his community heartbroken and speechless. At Licking Heights High School, dozens of former students and faculty gathered for a somber candlelight vigil to honor his memory. They wrote messages on balloons and launched them into the air. In a fitting tribute to his old jersey number, a faculty member noted that at one point, 49 people were in the gymnasium to pay their respects. A friend who had known him since middle school worried about the blow his death would be for his close-knit family.

The Columbus Police Department launched a homicide investigation but had no immediate suspects or a motive for the killing. Investigators were uncertain whether Osei had been shot in the bank parking lot or if he had been killed elsewhere and left at the scene. Police confirmed they were reviewing surveillance video from the bank but did not release it to the public, stating it was part of the investigation. As of March 2016, the case remained unsolved, and authorities asked anyone with information to contact the Columbus Police.