Kansas City metro records two homicides in 2024. Here are the details of each killing.
Kansas City experienced its deadliest year on record in 2023, when there were 185 killings in the city. Across the metro area, more than 240 people died by homicide.
The previous year, Kansas City saw 171 killings. Including the greater metro, 264 homicides were recorded in 2022, the city’s third deadliest year ever recorded. And in 2020, the city’s second deadliest year on record, there were 182 killings in Kansas City and 269 homicides when including surrounding cities.
In 2024, this list includes details of every homicide across the Kansas City metro area once they’ve been reported by police. It also includes the names and ages of each victim and when and where they died.
The list will be updated throughout the year, with the most recent homicides at the top.
The Star counts fatal police shootings as homicides, which could mean a city’s total will differ from those kept by a city’s police department. Some homicides on the list may be judged by authorities as justifiable.
2. John Bartrom, 41, on Jan. 7
Officers responded to a medical call just after midnight to the 6200 block of Prospect Avenue, where they found a man lying unresponsive in a nearby business’ parking lot. The man appeared to be suffering from a medical emergency, so officers rendered aid until emergency medical services arrived to take him to a hospital.
It was later discovered the man had been shot. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
1. Vonzell Bryant, 70, on Jan. 3
Officers responded to a medical call shortly before 10 p.m. where they met emergency medical workers in the yard of a home in the 2600 block of Agnes Avenue in the Washington-Wheatley neighborhood of Kansas City. The emergency medical workers were rendering aid to the victim who was suffering from unknown “bodily trauma.” The victim later was identified as “Captain” Vonzell Bryant.
