Suspected St. Louis serial killer linked to 2 murders in Kansas City, Kansas, FBI says
The FBI on Monday arrested a suspected serial killer wanted in connection with six killings that spanned the St. Louis and Kansas City areas over the past two months.
Perez Reed, 25, was apprehended Friday at an Independence charter bus station by agents working on a joint task force as he was traveling back to St. Louis. He is currently being held on a weapons charge stemming from a federal affidavit filed in the Eastern District of Missouri St. Louis Office.
In the affidavit, a special agent with the FBI tied Reed to a series of shootings that began Sept. 12 in St. Louis County. All the victims were shot with a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson. Investigators later found that the shell casings from those shootings all matched the same gun.
Prosecutors in St. Louis on Monday charged him with the murders of two people. There’s a possibility of other charges pending. As of Monday, the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office had yet to file any criminal charges against Reed.
The sworn statement from investigators also implicates Reed in the killings of Damon Irvin, 35, and Rau’Daja Fairrow, 25, of Kansas City, Kansas. Neither is named in federal court records, but information provided by authorities matches homicide investigations opened by Kansas City, Kansas police earlier this month after their bodies were discovered in separate apartments within the Wyandotte Towers, a 15-story building downtown.
During an interview with federal agents last week, Reed allegedly admitted to being in Kansas City, Kansas, and having communication with one of the local victims by phone. But he denied harming anyone, according to court records.
During a press conference Monday in St. Louis, U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming thanked the more than half a dozen law enforcement agencies involved in what she called a “relentless investigation of these hideous and violent crimes.”
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell said Reed was arrested in possession of a handgun that matched shell casings found at all three St. Louis County shootings, multiple homicides in the city of St. Louis, and at homicides in Kansas City, Kansas.
All were traced back to a handgun found in Reed’s possession during his Friday arrest, authorities said.
Bell sidestepped using the term “serial killer” Monday since at this point he said Reed has only been charged in two crimes. However, if he is convicted in three or more of the killings, he will be identified as a serial killer.
One of the main investigators on the case out of St. Louis County said to their knowledge, none of the victims were related to one another. He is not aware of any other alleged crimes committed by Reed.
“These are a lot of violent acts that obviously occurred in a very brief period of time, so there could be others prior to this,” he said. “There’s no way for me to know at this time.”
He also said that Reed “definitely had a distinctive manner” in which he injured his victims, though he wouldn’t elaborate further.
St. Louis shootings
The first reported shooting outlined in court documents occurred in St. Louis County on the night of Sept. 12. The shooting victim was waiting for a bus when he was approached from behind and shot several times without warning, the affidavit says.
Police were called the following day to another shooting in the 9900 block of Glen Owen Drive in St. Louis County. Officers were responding to a ShotSpotter alert, a technology that uses microphones to detect gunfire, when they discovered a woman fatally shot in the head.
On Sept. 16, another woman was shot in the face around 10:20 p.m. in the 4500 block of Adelaide Avenue in St. Louis. Police found the victim at a nearby gas station and followed a blood trail to the shooting scene, discovering a single shell casing.
The same day, roughly an hour later, a person was found fatally shot less than two miles away. The victim was shot in the head.
On Sept. 19, there was another fatal shooting in St. Louis. Police found the victim dead with gunshot wounds to the head and body in a vacant lot in the 1500 block of Mullanphy Street.
The last listed St. Louis area shooting happened on Sept. 26. Ferguson police found a person fatally shot in the head after responding to a ShotSpotter call. Two shell casings were found, according to court records.
Two dead in KCK apartment building
Federal authorities were contacted by police in Kansas City, Kansas, on Nov. 1 after the discovery of two bodies in Wyandotte Towers, a 15-story, 302-unit building in the 900 block of Washington Boulevard. Both victims were found fatally shot.
Investigators learned that Reed had traveled by Amtrak from St. Louis to Kansas City on Oct. 28. That night, he was allegedly seen on surveillance video being let inside the Wyandotte Towers apartment building by one of the victims, who was not heard from by family after that point.
Reed was seen entering and leaving the victim’s apartment the following morning, court records allege.
The next day, Reed was seen entering the same building and presented his Missouri ID to building security, the affidavit says. He was allegedly captured on surveillance video leaving the apartment of the second shooting victim roughly 15 minutes later.