Teenagers fatally shot in Kansas City were ‘friends until the end,’ family says
Dominik Simmons and Dominique Nelson were inseparable, family of the 15-year-olds said.
Sometimes Dominique’s family would find her best friend, Dominik, sitting on her porch in the morning, waiting for her to wake up. Friends since they were 8 years old, the two lived a couple blocks apart in Kansas City and were rarely seen without the other, loved ones said.
Dominique’s family referred to the pair as “the Domos.” Dominik’s father, Willie Wilkins, called them “two peas in a pod.”
“That was my sister’s right hand man,” said Dominique’s brother, 20-year-old DeAnthony Bridgeford. Dominique surrounded herself with good people. And Dominik was just that.
The best friends were fatally shot on a particularly violent weekend in mid-March when, within 48 hours, five people were added to the city’s growing list of homicide victims. No one has been charged in the teens’ killings.
“Their friendship was like no other bond,” Wilkins said. “They watched out for each other. They were really ride or die friends.
“They were friends until the end, literally.”
‘Wanted to be somebody’
Dominik had a signature look, his “Kool-Aid smile,” his father said. The second-youngest of five siblings, he kept everyone in the room laughing.
Dominik recently became an uncle. When he saw his niece, he started ‘cheesin’.
“He wanted to be somebody,” Wilkins, 41, said of his son, a freshman in high school.
Dominik talked of being a chef. He loved cooking with his grandma. His dad liked his spaghetti best. Wilkins doesn’t know what made it so good, but said there was more heart and soul to it than just noodles and sauce.
When someone needed help, Dominik would roll up his sleeves and get to work. He helped care for his grandma, who is on bed rest, by cooking and helping in the yard.
Dominik was a “young prince” who carried himself like a young man, Wilkins said. Given more time to live and grow, his father knows he would have been a “prospect king.”
Dreams to cut hair and make music
Dominique was “fearless and bright,” her oldest brother, Bridgeford, said. But there was one exception: she was scared of the dark.
Her great grandmother, 70-year-old Ruby Martin, recalled waking up one night to find lights illuminating the stove, back porch and back yard.
“Grandma, I’m just talking precautionary measures,” Martin recalled Dominique saying with a laugh.
Dominique adored her little siblings, family said. They were constantly impressed by her maturity, honesty and loyalty. And by her vocabulary, family gathered late last week told The Star.
Joslyn Boyd, 31, called her niece Dominique a “serial entrepreneur.” She had dreams to cut hair and make music, just like her dad. She was also in her freshman year of high school and had just gotten a fresh haircut in anticipation of going back to school in-person.
She recently wrote and recorded a song on her phone. It began: “I go shopping at Macy’s, I mean my bank account just like Jay-Z. I can make the girls go crazy.”
The lyrics continued, giving shout-outs to her little sister, grandmother and late father, whom she was named for. Her dad, also named Dominique Nelson, was fatally shot in July 2009 near East 59th Street and Indiana Avenue. He was 20. She was nearly 3 years old.
“I think that’s where she gained a lot of her strength, that’s where she gained a lot of her wisdom, in that pain,” Boyd said of such an early loss.
As she got older, Dominique increasingly reminded them of her father. Similar mannerisms. The same bright smile. Until the time of her death, she wore a diamond necklace with a picture of her and her dad when she was a baby, gifted by her girlfriend.
‘There should be more outcry’
Dominik and Dominque were killed when gunfire broke out after 10 p.m. on March 20 during an argument between two groups near East 73rd Street and Norton Avenue, police said.
At the time, police believed Dominique was the only victim. But Dominik’s body was found at about 1 p.m. the next day behind a vacant house roughly a block south of the crime scene, according to the Kansas City Police Department.
Their killings marked the 37th and 38th homicides this year in Kansas City. Last year ended with 182 homicides, the most in the city’s history in a single year, according to data maintained by The Star.
Dominik and Dominique are among nine youth fatally shot in Kansas City in the past year, including Jayson Ugwuh, 16, on Jan. 10; Tyron Payton, 1, on Sept. 21; Anthony Strassle, 16, on Sept. 16; Marquice Amos, 15, on July 17; LeGend Taliferro, 4, on June 29; Deveon Edwards, 17, on June 17; and Clarence A. Lyons, 16, on June 1.
“We cannot keep allowing our children to be murdered in our neighborhoods and our streets,” said Rosilyn Temple, leader of the anti-violence group KC Mothers in Charge, who attended services for both Dominik and Dominique over the weekend. “This cannot allow it to be the norm.”
Neither of the teens’ families know what happened that Saturday evening. Last they heard, the friends were going to the store together. Dominique’s final post on social media showed a picture of her feet walking.
While Wilkins said he’s outraged, he’s also staying back and letting the detectives do their job. He calls the department for updates, but he’s not letting himself get his hopes up yet. He just hopes someone talks.
“There should be more outcry,” Boyd, Dominique’s aunt, said. “People should really be outraged and disturbed about what is going on in our communities. It doesn’t matter which part of the metro that you live in, I think that we all should be able to feel this loss in some way or another.”
She said it seems as if some people saw the headlines about two dead teens in the inner city, and just wrote them off.
“They were teenagers,” Boyd pleaded. “They were kids.”
Only memories remain
A basket of dirty laundry sits in Dominique’s room, which is decorated with cowboy decor and two framed certificates from Hilltop Saddle Club, where she liked to ride horses with her family. Detectives stopped by her home to offer support last week.
When they left, Martin went back to planning funeral arrangements. Services cost twice what they did when they were planning the ceremony for Dominique’s father, she said.
Boyd read back through old messages in their family group chat. She smiled as she came across a photo shoot Dominique sent to the family. She posed in her great grandmother’s cowboy boots in the snow. Boyd took a screenshot of a message Dominique sent the family out of the blue, not too long ago: “I just want to say that I love everybody.”
Her family hopes to adopt a stretch of Highway 71 in memory of both Dominique and her father.
And in the corner of Wilkins’ house sits a baseball bat from Domink’s time on the little league team.
When he looks out at his backyard, he can still see his son playing with their German Shepherd, Diamond. He envisions the large dog throwing her body weight against Dominik’s chest, and Dominik doing his best to wipe away the muddy paw prints left on his shirt.
Dominik’s sisters created an “obituary passport” with his photo. He always wanted to travel; this way they can bring his memory with them. They went on their first trip this week, to St. Louis.
Wilkins recently started teaching Dominik to drive, a rite of passage for many 15 year olds. Now, Wilkins drives alone. Soon he will wear his son’s ashes around in a necklace — at least this way he can be close.
Gun violence is the subject of a new, statewide journalism project The Star is undertaking in Missouri this year in partnership with the national service program Report for America and sponsored in part by Missouri Foundation for Health. As part of this project, The Star will seek the community’s help.
To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
