Text messages lead KC police to arrest two people in New Year’s Day killing

Investigators used recovered cellphone text messages to find suspects in a New Year’s Day shooting that killed a man and seriously injured a woman in south Kansas City.

Based on those phone records and other evidence, Jackson County prosecutors charged two people Thursday in the death of Sederick J. Jones, 23, and the wounding of his ex-girlfriend.

Ramon D. Boyd, 29, and Destynie J. Wright, 19, each face second-degree murder, assault and other charges in the case. Prosecutors say Wright sent text messages asking Boyd to come to the scene.

According to court records, Wright, 19, attended a New Year’s Eve party with Jones’ ex-girlfriend at an event hall at 5111 E. 112th Terrace. Toward the end of the event, Jones showed up. The women were not expecting him.

After the party ended, the women and Jones walked out together and spent at least 30 minutes in the parking lot as Jones tried to talk his ex-girlfriend into leaving with him. According to Wright, Jones was “upset and professed his love” for his ex-girlfriend. Jones had a gun in his hand but did not threaten anyone with it, Wright told police.

She told police she heard gunshots, blacked out, awoke and drove away from the scene without calling police.

Other people summoned officers, who arrived to find Jones dead, lying on top of a handgun, and his ex-girlfriend critically wounded.

After spending a month in the hospital, the ex-girlfriend told police that while in the parking lot, she and Jones had gotten in Wright’s car with Wright to talk. The ex-girlfriend said she had not seen him with a gun. During a long discussion with Jones, Wright sent text messages to Boyd, according to the ex-girlfriend.

The ex-girlfriend eventually decided to leave with Jones and moved her personal belongings from Wright’s car to his SUV. All of them were sitting in Wright’s car when she heard gunshots and glass breaking and realized she had been shot.

Although Wright reportedly deleted the text messages from her phone, investigators recovered them.

“OK, he’s in my car,” one message read. “come get him now!!!!!!”

Boyd wrote that he was pulling up.

“Is he still there,” he asked.

“YES .. COME GET HIM,” Wright allegedly wrote back. A couple of messages later, she wrote that Jones had a gun.

A preliminary analysis of cell tower data showed that Boyd’s cellphone was in the area of the shooting at the time of the attack, police said.

This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 11:26 AM with the headline "Text messages lead KC police to arrest two people in New Year’s Day killing."