Wife of man shot, killed in Independence crime spree speaks out
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Tragedy struck Friday night in Independence, Missouri, after a father of three was shot and killed protecting his wife and children.
The man accused in the shooting was arrested the following morning.
Kierra Turner wants the community to know her husband was a great man, a man of faith who made an impact on the people he met.
Turner and her husband Juavvion Bagsby have three boys.
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“They loved their dad,” Turner said in an interview with FOX4 Tuesday. “They loved their daddy so much. They really do.”
Friday night, his life was taken away in what began as a random situation.
According to court documents, 28-year-old Blue Springs resident Tyler Rizer approached a man at his home asking for a ride to Target. The man agreed, but during the ride, Rizer changed where he wanted to go.
The driver hopped on I-70 and started heading west. Rizer found a knife in the center console of the car. The driver pulled over on the interstate, tried to get out and was stabbed.
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The victim started running north to some homes at 40th Terrace and South Osage Street. Rizer, according to the probable cause statement, was chasing after him.
Neighbors confronted Rizer, so he ran across I-70, south toward 41st Terrace and South Osage where Turner was outside with her children. Rizer, according to the probable cause statement, started to grab the children and her by their necks.
“It wasn’t just me affected,” Turner said. “My children, my husband, people in the neighborhood. The guy just kind of came out of nowhere.”
Turner called her husband who drove to their home with his handgun. Bagsby found Rizer just south of their home where a confrontation happened, along with Bagsby’s next door neighbor. Both the neighbor and Bagsby were shot. Bagsby died of his injuries.
“He loved his children. He loved me. He really did,” Turner said. “Given the circumstance, I know he would do anything to protect us, and that’s what he died doing was protecting us.”
Turner says these are the things she wants people to remember about her husband.
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“Cherish your loved ones, hold your family tight,” she continued. “Not even trying to be funny, but you never know, and not in a million years would I have expected this to happen to me or my children, and it’s so easy to just not think about those things when it’s not you, but it’s true.”
After the shooting, the statement says Rizer took Bagsby’s car. He was involved in a crash at 6:58 that evening at 17th and Jackson in Kansas City, Mo. He tried to carjack another driver after that crash.
The statement says North Kansas City Hospital reached out to Independence Police early Saturday morning that they believed KCPD had brought Rizer to them. He was arrested.
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The statement says Bagsby’s neighbor was unconscious at a local hospital after surgery from the shooting. A police detective was able to talk to the stabbing victim after he had surgery as well.
If you’d like to donate to Turner’s family, a GoFundMe has been set up in remembrance of Bagsby.
