‘Such a beautiful soul’: Loved ones mourn loss of 24-year-old Westport shooting victim
Cardell Crawford had nothing to do with the altercation at Westport Ale House that led to his death late Sunday evening, his family says.
Instead, the 24-year-old father was only trying to lead his party of friends to safety, his older sister, Camille Crawford, tells The Star. That’s just the kind of person he was, she says.
“If you knew him you knew that he was the type who would look out for you no matter what,” Camille Crawford, 34, says as the family awaits answers in the shooting that took away an irreplaceable part of their lives and injured five others.
“His light will be missing from the family,” she says. “Now we are just trying to navigate the best we can.”
The Missouri State Highway Patrol has said that a fight started inside the bar and then moved outside, where guns were fired. In a pair of search warrants unsealed Friday, a detective wrote that two of the men shot — including Cardell Crawford — were struck by bullets from “unknown source(s)” as they fired guns from beside a Chrysler rental van.
Camille Crawford says that the family has been kept in the dark about the specifics and that they learned of Cardell’s death from news accounts. His sister has taken to social media to crusade for transparency during the investigation. While no suspect has been named, the family hopes that answers will come soon and give closure to a difficult situation.
“I will not stop speaking out and asking questions until we know what happened to him,” said Crawford on a Facebook post in which she tagged The Missouri State Highway Patrol, The Westport Business Association, and Mayor Quinton Lucas.
She says the loss is especially difficult for her family after their father died of COVID-19 last year. Her late brother was her support through the grief. Now she feels as if she has lost her closest friend.
The blow is even worse as she plans a wedding where her little brother was set to give her away at the altar.
“The last conversation we had, we were talking about my wedding,” she says. “I was crying about not being able to have our dad walk me down the aisle. Cardell told me not to worry about that, and that he was going to be the one to walk me down. And now he is gone.”
She says she and her brother were in charge of the funeral arrangements for their father. Cardell designed the headstone that would end up marking his grave along with his father.
“When my dad passed, we wanted a big headstone, but the only way we could get that was to buy a double plot. My brother ended up designing the headstone. We never even thought it would end up being used for his grave,” she says.
Cardell Crawford had recently started a new job at Ford Motor Co. as an assembly line worker, she says, and he was excited to begin working a job that would allow him to provide for his 3-year-old daughter, Mayumi. His family now takes on the responsibility of making sure that his memory stays alive in the mind of his only child.
“He really adored and loved her. He really loved being a father,” his sister says. “She is so young, so we have to always make sure we keep his memory alive for her and make sure she knows how much he loved her.”
On that fateful Sunday he died, she was in Mexico, enjoying a much-needed trip with family and friends. The vacation ended abruptly with the news of her brother’s death.
Now back in Kansas City to plan the funeral of her brother, she says the loss is still settling in for her and her family. She reminisces about the phone calls that she will no longer receive from him asking for advice on fatherhood, business plans or just to tell her about a new outfit he bought. She is comforted, however, by the many calls and messages on social media she has received from people who knew her brother and the joy and laughter that he brought.
“Your brother was one of our regular customers. I had the honor of knowing this beautiful soul.”
“We gonna miss you man. Such a beautiful soul lost way too early.”
“I love you so much, watch over us from heaven.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.
This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 3:41 PM.
