Kansas City man accused in fatal shooting of ex-roommate, co-worker: court records
A 39-year-old man is accused of shooting his roommate and co-worker before leaving him to die in a Kansas City parking lot in December.
Sabin Patty, 39, is charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in Jackson County Circuit Court in the killing of 59-year-old Jeffrey L. Phillips. Patty was arrested on the charges this week and made his first court appearance Wednesday.
Phillips was found shot to death on Dec. 3 in the parking lot of a business near the intersection of 60th Street and Prospect Ave. Officers were dispatched to the scene to find Phillips dead around 3:30 a.m., roughly four hours after a call for service came from the Missouri Probation and Patrol Office about a person on electronic monitoring who was not moving.
Police arrived and found Phillips’ body near a 9mm shell casing and a spent bullet at the scene. Phillips was wearing a GPS ankle bracelet at the time.
Surveillance footage showed two men exit a vehicle that had entered the parking lot of an auto repair business around 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 2. Phillips is seen walking in the parking lot before the suspect, identified by police as Patty, takes a shooting stance and fires a single gunshot. The video shows Phillips collapse as a suspect takes off on foot.
Detectives interviewed an apartment manager of a building where Phillips and Patty resided together beginning around May 2021. The witness told police he saw the men leaving the apartment together the day before Phillips was found dead. The employer of both men told police they had been working on a remodeling job days prior in the area of 51st Street and Brookwood Ave.
A phone number provided by Patty’s probation officer led police to trace his location to a homeless camp in Clay County on Jan. 10.
Patty was living inside a tent, occupied by two other people, who told police Patty was known to carry a pink and silver 9mm handgun. The firearm was seized as evidence after investigators were granted a search warrant for the tent, where a printed resume for Phillips was found in a folder inside a blue backpack.
During a police interview, Patty allegedly claimed he had discovered the cellphone at City Market and that he was able to bypass the security lock using tin foil and paper clips. He later admitted the phone belonged to him, court records state.
Investigators found that Patty’s phone had communicated with Phillips’ more than 157 times, including messages that allegedly were “angry in nature” and challenged Phillips to fight. The Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory analyzed the gun found in the tent and determined that it was the same one used in Phillips’ shooting.
Patty is currently being held in the Jackson County jail.
Court records did not list a defense attorney for Patty.
