Kansas City police continue to investigate two unrelated homicides this week in which victims, a woman and a girl, were killed by gunfire in similar circumstances inside homes, a police spokesman said Thursday evening.
Captain Jake Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, said Thursday that investigators have not linked the two shootings.
“There’s no indication of any connection between the two of them,” he said.
But police don’t believe either shooting was accidental.
In the first shooting, which occurred in the 3000 block of East 32nd Street in Kansas City’s Santa Fe neighborhood Tuesday evening, officers investigating the sound of gunfire in the neighborhood found an unresponsive woman inside a home. She was pronounced dead at the scene and was later identified as a resident of the street, 58-year-old Nancy Stinnett.
Police said bullets from outside the home struck the victim. No suspect information has been released connected to the incident.
“’Stray bullet’ (is) definitely not a term we’re using for this,” Becchina said. “Early indications are that the people that fired the shots were intending to strike that house.”
The second shooting occurred about a mile west the following night. In that incident, which occurred in the 3300 block of Flora Avenue in the Linwood Homeowners-Ivanhoe neighborhood Wednesday evening, officers investigating gunshots found an unresponsive girl who had been struck by gunfire inside a home. The girl was taken to an area hospital, where she was declared dead. She was later identified as 11-year-old Kourtney Freeman.
Similarly, in that shooting, police said the victim had been inside a home when she was struck by gunfire from outside. No suspect information has been released connected to that incident either.
But, in both cases, police believe the suspects intended to shoot at those homes.
“Indications are, yes, that the shots were fired from the nearby vicinity of that house and intended for that house,” Becchina said.
Anyone with information about either incident may contact police by calling detectives directly at 816-234-5043 or by calling the TIPS Hotline anonymously at 816-474-TIPS.
The Star’s Robert Cronkleton contributed reporting to this story.