KC man accused of killing neighbor to seek ‘stand your ground’ defense: attorney
Jeffrey Traviss King, the Kansas City man accused of shooting his neighbor to death in the street outside his house earlier this month, may seek a ‘stand your ground,’ defense, his attorney suggested Tuesday.
“It is very important for people to acknowledge and respect that Mr. King, at least according to the probable cause statement — this is a law enforcement affidavit — it states that Mr. King was ambushed at his home. And the state of Missouri has very robust self-defense protection and is a stand your ground state,” said Kansas City defense attorney, Matthew T. Merryman, with The Bates & Merryman Law Firm.
The case, which has yet to be scheduled for trial, involves King, 42, who around 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 12 got into an outdoor confrontation with his neighbor, Christopher Cole Wells, 41, who lived three houses away on the 2500 block of Northeast 78th Street, in the Clay County portion of Kansas City.
The fight that ensued, according to the police probable cause statement, ended with Wells, the married father of four children, being shot at close range and dying in the middle of the street, lying face down, with five bullet holes in the front of his body and eight in his back.
King, charged with first degree murder and armed criminal action, has pleaded not guilty. Wells’ funeral was held Tuesday morning.
Jeffrey Traviss King
Neighbors insist that tension, with King at the center, has enveloped the middle-class neighborhood for upwards of eight years.
They say that since about 2018 King has waged what they view as his own war of harassment and verbal abuse against multiple people along his street who have repeatedly complained about his behavior, citing him with the city and their Maple Wood Estates Homes Association over how he keeps his property and the multiple dilapidated cars he has parked along the block’s well-kept streets.
Instead of ceding to neighborhood requests, they say, King instead has defied them, albeit almost always within the law — loading his front driveway with a boat, a camper with a burned out mattress and, at one point, a motorcycle. A deer stand sits in a front tree. Backyard patio furniture, tables, storage bins, a cord of firewood sits on his front lawn.
To at least three neighbors, he blasted their homes at night with bright spotlights. He purchased as many as eight, some say eleven, old cars that he parked along both sides of the street making it difficult to pass, and sometimes intentionally leaving the cars in front of neighbors’ post boxes.
King later appeared on television news to complain that the city had unfairly towed his cars.
Neighbors say he hurled curses at the neighbors he saw as enemies.
The day Chris Wells was killed
The tension erupted on Jan. 12 when, according to the probable cause statement, Wells’ wife, Kirsten, was walking her dog that Monday morning when she saw a vehicle running on King’s property. The Wellses had earlier filed an order of protection against King over past incidents. Wells turned to return to her home, the statement says, when she noticed King walking toward her and her house with a blanket in his hands.
“As King walked toward (the) property, he (King) tossed the blanket into the grass area in the front yard,” the statement said.
Because of the long history of harassment, the statement said, Kirsten Wells called her husband at work. Christopher Wells returned home.
“Shortly after the victim (Wells) arrived home,” the statement reads, “she observed the victim walking toward King’s property to confront him.”
King was not at home at that moment. But the statement reads that surveillance video from a neighbor’s camera showed Wells sitting on the curb across the street from King’s residence. King, the statement reads, soon pulled up to the front of his house. He exited the vehicle.
The statement said that video shows that Wells then “goes toward King and throws a punch that appears to strike King on the head. The momentum of King and the victim appears to carry each of them to the rear of the vehicle.” The camera’s view is blocked.
“King reemerges, followed closely by the victim,” meaning Wells. Soon after, Wells is seen backing away from King, “apparently raising his hands as he backs away.” King continues toward Wells, the statement reads, but the view is again blocked.
“Eight gunshots are heard as the view of them becomes blocked by the vehicle,” the statement reads.
It said that detectives talked to a witness who spoke to King shortly after the incident. The witness, the statement said, “saw King standing in the street with his hands up and the victim lying on the ground. The witness asked King what happened and King stated, ‘He attacked me. Punched me in the face and I shot him dead.’”
Detectives also spoke to two juvenile witnesses, the statement reads.
“The juvenile witnesses each stated they observed King shoot the victim in the back as the victim was lying face down on the ground,” the statement reads.
At least one neighbor said he saw the fight and witnessed King being punched three times in the face, before he returned a blow of his own. In a police arrest photo, King appears with a black eye.
Missouri’s statute for “Use of Force in Defense of Person,” states, “A person may. . . use physical force on another if they reasonably believe such force is necessary to defend themselves or another from what they reasonably believe to be the use of imminent use of unlawful force by such other person.”
But there are caveats, including when the “actor was the initial aggressor,” or when “he or she has withdrawn from the encounter and effectively communicated such withdrawal to such other person, but the latter persists in continuing the incident . . .”
Neighbors remain fearful
King is currently being held on $5 million bond in Clay County Jail.
On Tuesday afternoon, King appeared in the Seventh Division of Clay County Circuit Court in Liberty, before Judge Louis Angles, on what was to be a motion to reduce his bond. King appeared in a gray and white, striped prison suit, with his hands manacled at his waist.
The hearing on the bond motion was postponed until Feb. 3 at 2:30 p.m. Some 35 friends, neighbors and relatives of Wells were in the courtroom, including relatives wearing black T-shirts, with Wells’ initials on the front, bordered by angel wings. On the back were printed the words “#Justice for Chris,” underscored by the dates of his birth and death, ”1/29/84 to 1/12/26.”
Neighbors since the shooting say they have been nervous and fearful that King may be released on bond and return to the neighborhood, concerned that he would seek retaliation against neighbors he still sees as enemies.
Records show that King runs a firearms business. A police search of his home turned up 16 9 mm handguns and other weapons.
“We hope they’ll deny bail completely,” said neighbor Vicky Galetti. “We’re afraid, if he gets out, what he will do to the rest of us.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2026 at 6:12 PM.
