18-year-old charged in connection with double homicide in south KC: Court documents
A Kansas City 18-year-old has been charged with four felonies, including accessory to murder, for her alleged role in a fatal double shooting in south Kansas City in December.
Linda S. Ater faces two charges of accessory to second-degree murder and two charges of armed criminal actions. Ater was allegedly involved in the shooting deaths of Deontae Marchbanks, 19, and Cierra Pennington, 17, on Dec. 9, 2024, according to authorities.
Court documents indicate that at least two other suspects have been identified, though not publicly, and could also face charges.
Police responded to shots fired outside an apartment building in the 6000 block of Blue Hills Road, in the Citadel neighborhood of Kansas City, around 3:30 p.m. Officers discovered Marchbanks and Pennington unresponsive in a car with multiple gunshot wounds.
Marchbanks was pronounced dead at the scene, while Pennington was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital shortly after.
Twenty-eight shell casings were found in and around the car after the shooting, according to court documents.
According to court documents, surveillance video shows Ater arriving to the parking lot in the same Nissan Sentra as the victims, with Marchbanks driving and Pennington in the front passenger seat.
Ater, allegedly armed with a handgun, can be seen speaking with the other suspects, who arrived around the same time in a Chevrolet Malibu. About a minute later, surveillance footage allegedly shows Ater firing several shots at the front section of the victims’ Sentra before ducking into the backseat of the Malibu, court documents read.
Detectives think Ater’s gun malfunctioned during the shooting, according to court documents, as she can allegedly be seen pulling the trigger to no effect several times before retreating to the Malibu.
After Ater enters the backseat of the Malibu, surveillance footage allegedly shows one of the other suspects shooting into the car several more times, then shooting Pennington several times as she attempted to flee.
Ater was arrested on Jan. 3, 2025, according to court documents. She is being held on a $250,000 cash bond and will next appear in court at 10 a.m. Jan. 14 for a bond review hearing.
The double shooting represented the 141st and 142nd homicides reported in Kansas City in 2024, according to data collected by The Star.
At the same time in 2023, 175 homicides had been reported in the city, according to Star data.
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 7:27 PM.
