In the early morning hours of November 21, 2020, Guy Gibson, a 28-year-old Black male from Jennings, Missouri, drove his vehicle to the 5300 block of Hodiamont Avenue. He had traveled to the location with the intention of picking up a friend. While he sat waiting inside his parked car, the quiet of the morning was shattered when an assailant opened fire on the vehicle.
Gibson was struck multiple times during the ambush, leaving him critically injured in the driver's seat as the shooter fled the scene.
St. Louis County police officers from the Jennings Precinct responded to calls regarding the shooting at approximately 7:35 a.m. Upon their arrival, they discovered Gibson wounded but still inside the car. Emergency responders rushed him to a nearby hospital in hopes of saving his life, but his injuries proved too severe, and he was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival. Investigators determined that the shooting was not a random act of violence but rather a targeted attack, though the specific motive behind the killing was not immediately apparent to authorities.
Detectives from the Bureau of Crimes Against Persons launched a homicide investigation and were able to quickly identify a suspect with the help of a witness at the scene. The witness identified the shooter as Deaunte Perry, a 25-year-old man. Following the identification, Perry surrendered himself to St. Louis County police shortly after the incident occurred. He was subsequently taken into custody and held without bond as the case moved forward.
Prosecutors charged Perry with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in connection with Gibson's death. The probable cause statement detailed that the eyewitness account was central to the charges brought against him. As the legal proceedings commenced, the community in Jennings and the broader St. Louis area were left to grapple with another instance of gun violence that had claimed the life of a young man waiting for a friend.
