Jury convicts Kansas City man in 2011 home invasion murder

A Jackson County jury convicted a 31-year-old man Friday of crimes associated with a 2011 home invasion and shooting death of a man and wounding of a woman.

Victor D. Vickers Jr. of Kansas City faces life in prison after being found guilty of first-degree murder, assault and two counts of armed criminal action in the slaying of Edward L. Ewing and wounding of Ewing’s girlfriend.

Jurors deliberated about eight hours over two days before reaching the verdicts. Vickers, a local rapper also known as “VV,” looked forward and showed no obvious emotion as the verdicts were announced.

During the four-day trial this week, prosecutors said Vickers and two other men approached Ewing’s 29-year-old girlfriend as she returned home in the 7000 block of East 85th Terrace about 1 a.m. Aug. 16, 2011.

Vickers was armed with a handgun. Ewing, the father of her children, was alone inside the residence asleep.

According to the state’s case, Vickers and the other men forced the woman to unlock the home’s front door. One of the men, later identified as Garron T. Briggs, forced her to lie on the living room floor while Vickers and the other man went into a bedroom and began looking for something they never found.

They repeatedly asked Ewing to tell them where the “stuff” was. One of the men then returned to the living room and said they couldn’t find what they were looking for. After Briggs told the man to “do it,” Briggs shot the victim in the chest.

The woman testified that she stayed on the floor and kept silent so Briggs would not shoot her again. She soon heard gunshots from a bedroom.

After Briggs, Vickers and a third men fled, the girlfriend called 911 on her cellphone and crawled to the bedroom of her infant daughter, where she found Ewing’s lifeless body against a wall. He had been shot seven times.

Ewing clutched a bedsheet as the bullets riddled his nude body, Assistant Jackson County Prosecutor Bryan Covinsky told jurors during closing arguments.

The girlfriend testified that she recognized Vickers and Briggs, who are cousins. The girlfriend and the assailants attended the same high school. She later identified Vickers and Briggs as the men who shot her boyfriend.

However, public defender Devon Pasley argued that no fingerprints, DNA or other physical evidence linked Vickers to the shooting.

Briggs, a co-defendant in the case, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder.

Vickers is to be sentenced July 15.

In a separate case, Vickers was sentenced in May 2015 to five years in federal prison on a 2014 marijuana distribution conviction. He appealed and is set to be resentenced June 9.

This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 10:25 AM with the headline "Jury convicts Kansas City man in 2011 home invasion murder."