KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Police are hoping someone will come forward with information about a violent shooting on Sunday that killed a young father and a teenage girl and injured a baby inside the apartment.
Officers were called to an apartment building at 21st & S. Mill Street around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. They found a baby inside the apartment, surrounded by the two dead victims, 21-year-old Keith Barrett, the baby’s father, and the baby’s aunt, 16-year-old Ranisha Jones.
Police believe Barrett was the gunman’s target and think Jones may have been in the wrong place and the wrong time, babysitting at the apartment because the child’s mother wasn’t home.
Family members say the sudden death of Barrett and Jones have left them shocked and heartbroken.
Myrisha Sowell and her boyfriend, Keith Barrett lived at the Rosedale Ridge Apartment Complex for almost a year. Sowell says early Sunday when the gunshots rang out, she was out with friends. She arrived home to learn her boyfriend and her sister who had been babysitting had both been shot and killed.
Jones was a sophomore at Center High School in Kansas City, Mo. She was babysitting her six-month-old nephew at the time she lost her life. The baby, Keith Jr. suffered a single gunshot wound to his left foot. The tiny survivor was released from the hospital on Monday afternoon.
His mother prays whoever shot her sister and boyfriend will be caught.
“My sister was a happy person,” Sowell said. “She smiled all the time and made everybody laugh.”
She also spoke highly of her boyfriend.
“Keith was a good person, he helped everybody that needed help,” she said. “You could come to him and ask for anything.”
Police are not releasing a motive for the homicides. Investigators are asking anyone with information to call the KCK Major Case Unit at (913) 573-6020 or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS.
