LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. — Police are still searching for the person who killed a 23-year-old man during a suspected road rage confrontation Saturday night on the northbound Highway 291 ramp on to Interstate 470.
The only solid piece of information police have released about the suspect is that they were driving a car. Make, model and color are unknown.
Police say Cody Harter was driving home from Peasant Hill after buying a new mower for his lawn care business when he was killed.
Video surveillance from a local business shows Harter driving on Highway 291 just south of I-470. A grey car and white car follow him at a distance, but there is no sign of road rage on the short video clip.
Watch the surveillance footage in the video player above.
About 6 minutes after the truck passes, 911 began getting calls that there was an injured person on the highway who needed help.
Police say witnesses described seeing Harter and another person stopped on the Highway 291 ramp, out of their vehicles, arguing. The suspect reportedly stabbed Harter in the chest, and he stumbled across a lane of traffic and collapsed where the highways meet.
Witnesses said the suspect took off in a car.
“Where our victim’s vehicle was he was literally in the middle of a lane of traffic,” said Sgt. Chris Depue with the Lee’s Summit Police Department. “Folks would have had to drive around his truck as well as the suspect’s vehicle.”
Police say they need witnesses and surveillance videos along Highway 291 to solve this case.
“Somewhere contained in that video is our suspect as he is fleeing.” Depue said. “It will just be a matter of us going through the hours and hours of surveillance video, and we will find it, and we will find this person.”
Harter, a military veteran, served two tours overseas in Iraq and helped with hurricane recovery in Houston and Puerto Rico. His family said he was a loving man who was planning to propose to his girlfriend. He was one semester away from graduating with a degree in engineering technology.
Police say there were hundreds of people who passed by before, during and after the road rage confrontation. They are relying on information from the public, no matter how small, to solve this case and help the Harter family heal.
“Let’s find who did this senseless act, so you are not sitting here when it is your child,” Kerrie Harter begged. “Please, please call.”
If you have any information that might help police solve this case, please call the Lee’s Summit Police at 816-969-1700 or 911.
