‘Stop hiding’: KC mother begs witnesses for help finding her son’s killer
Tina Madge dreads attending family dinners and other gatherings.
It isn’t that she doesn’t like the food and fun times with her loved ones. The problem is, those events often unleash a flood of memories for her about her youngest son, Charles Bates, who was shot and killed seven years ago.
On March 26, 2012, someone shot Bates, 24, while he was driving someone to a house near 80th Street and Brooklyn Avenue in southeast Kansas City. His homicide is still unsolved.
That’s what Madge doesn’t like thinking about at a family dinner.
“Sometimes I don’t want to go because I am used to my son being there,” Madge said Monday. “I can’t explain it. It’s hurtful. I miss him.”
On Monday, Madge pleaded for someone to come forward and provide homicide detectives with information that would lead to an arrest. Bates was the father of a 15-month-old daughter when he was killed.
The reward for information leading to an arrest has recently increased to $25,000.
Madge said it shouldn’t take a cash offer for someone to come forward. But she hopes someone will.
“I have to get justice for him, me and his daughter,” she said.
On the day of the killing, arriving police officers found the car Bates was driving in the middle of the intersection.
The vehicle was in park with its engine running, the front right passenger door ajar, according to police.
Bates had apparently exited the driver’s side of the vehicle and was found face down inside 8001 Brooklyn. Paramedics rushed him to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.
A person of interest in the shooting was taken into custody but was later released pending further investigation, said detective Scott Emery of the Kansas City Police Department.
Since the killing, Madge said, she and her granddaughter often visits her son’s grave.
“My granddaughter says, ‘I want my daddy,’” Madge said. “She (granddaughter) wants me to dig him up.”
Bates grew up in Kansas City and attended various high schools including Southeast, Van Horn and Manual Career and Technical Center. He had a job at Wendy’s when he died. Bates’ grandfather had taught him plumbing.
Three years before he was killed, Bates pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery. He was sentenced to five years in prison but was given a suspended sentence and five years probation.
“He wasn’t an angel,” Madge said about her son. “No child is an angel. I am never going to say that my son was an angel. But he was a good kid.”
Madge said she has battled cancer but the pain of losing a son has been devastating. Any information that would help investigators would be appreciated, she said.
“Why are you keeping it a secret,” Madge said. “You have to take some of the grief off of us, and I know you have to live with that burden.
“Stop hiding.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2019 at 1:48 PM.
