KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Wednesday was tough day for Mike Cantwell’s family and friends.
They attended his funeral and buried him as police search for the suspect in his murder.
“He was such a good guy,” Cantwell’s brother David Cantwell said. “He’d give you the shirt off his back. You know he would do without to help you, and that’s why this is all so bizarre. He goes to help someone and he ended up getting murdered.”
“I saw him about one week before he lost his life. He was fine. We were just having brother talks,” David Cantwell said.
Police are still searching for Jerome Roberson, the Kansas City man suspected of killing Cantwell on Nov. 2 and another man on Oct. 28. during a separate shooting at a mobile home park in Independence.
“My brother didn’t know this guy, and Mike wasn’t a violent person,” David Cantwell said. “From what I understand, he got a phone call around 3 a.m. from a female friend who asked him to come pick her up. He hopped in his car, left his home in Independence and then drove to Kansas City trying to help her.”
Police say once Cantwell arrived at a house near East 25th and Quincy, Jerome Roberson shot Cantwell in his head, killing him.
“My brother never got out of his vehicle,” a frustrated David Cantwell said. “He still had $180 in his pocket, and we still don’t know why this man would kill him. It was senseless. This guy needs to be stopped because if they don’t catch him, he’ll do it again.”
“He was just a good man,” Cheryl Wilkins said of the friend she knew for almost nine years. “He had a gentle, caring heart. That was Mike. He just helped everybody.”
Mike Cantwell, a retired electrician and beloved grandfather, was killed three and a half weeks before Thanksgiving and his 66th birthday.
“It’s just hard to deal with, and it’s especially hard for my mother,” David Cantwell said. “My mother is 89 years old, and it’s real hard on her.”
“Very hard to believe and what’s even harder is that again it’s just a senseless act of violence, ” said John Frederick, another close friend of Mike Cantwell.
Meanwhile, a police spokesperson told FOX 4 detectives are doing everything they can to find Jerome Roberson, who they say is “armed and dangerous.”
Mike Cantwell’s family and friends say Roberson’s arrest would give them some comfort.
“Police need to put up fliers, do everything they can to find him and any witnesses need to call the tips hotline, ” David Cantwell said.
