Independence man charged with 2022 fatal shooting
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office announced charges Wednesday against an Independence man accused of fatally shooting a 25-year-old in 2022, according to a news release from director of communications Jazzlyn Johnson.
Maurice Green, 21, faces one count each of second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon, according to Jackson County court documents.
Kansas City police officers were dispatched around 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 26, 2022, to the area of 10th and Olive streets on a medical call, according to previous reporting from The Kansas City Star.
Officers found a woman who had witnessed the shooting standing outside a white Kia Altima, according to a probable cause statement in support of Green’s arrest. Inside the vehicle, officers found Austin Michael Knowles-DeClements, 25, dead.
In an interview with police, the woman stated she had seen two suspects with hoods on their heads walk out of an apartment complex, armed with a pistol, according to court documents. When the shooting occurred, the woman “climbed on top of the deceased male driver’s body and drove the vehicle away to a safe distance and called 911.”
Green, who was 17 at the time, was identified as one of the suspects through cellphone records, an FBI sketch completed with the witness and DNA from a sandal left at the scene, according to court documents.
Green was taken into custody on Feb. 27, 2023, according to court documents. He initially denied involvement, but later told officers he had been present and that the sandal left at the scene belonged to him.
The man told officers that he and another man had bought marijuana from Knowles-DeClements the day before.
Green is being held in the Jackson County Detention Center without bond, according to the jail’s inmate listing. He is set to appear for a bond review hearing July 16.
