After U.S. Navy vet’s shooting death in Raytown, family in Indiana hopes for answers
Family members of a 50-year-old Raytown man killed inside his home during a late-night shooting last week are seeking answers about the circumstances surrounding his death, an aunt said Wednesday.
Police on Monday identified the man killed in the shooting as Todd McGraw of Raytown.
His aunt, Sharon Barnes of Zionsville, Indiana, said McGraw’s extended family in the Indianapolis area didn’t learn about his death until Tuesday when they noticed someone had posted “R.I.P. Todd” on his Facebook page.
“That got the phone calls going,” Barnes said. Since then, they have found little information.
Police responded to McGraw’s home in the 8400 block of Elm Avenue shortly before midnight July 18 after receiving a call that a person had been shot.
Arriving officers found McGraw inside the home suffering from a gunshot wound. Police said they took a person into custody.
That person, however, has been released and no charges have been filed in the homicide, Capt. Dyon Harper, a spokesman with the Raytown Police Department, said Wednesday.
“It’s still an open investigation,” Harper said. He declined to comment on any of the circumstances in the case.
Harper asked anyone with information about the shooting to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
A person who answered the door at McGraw’s home Wednesday afternoon declined to discuss the shooting.
McGraw, a U.S. Navy veteran and former attorney, worked for Reeves-Wiedeman Co., a Kansas City area wholesale plumbing supplies company. His LinkedIn profile said he worked there for 12 years and was a district manager.
McGraw is the father of two girls from a previous marriage — ages 11 and 9 years old, Barnes said.
Barnes was very close to her nephew. She last spoke with him on the phone two days before his death and exchanged text messages with him the day before.
McGraw was looking to refinance his house and needed to list the closest family member that he doesn’t live with, she said.
“Aunt Sharon, that would be you,” Barnes said he said. “Basically you are. You are my next of kin. I love you.”
