On the morning of May 18, 2020, police in Saint Louis County, Missouri, were called to the scene of a shooting at an apartment complex in the northern part of the county. Officers responded to the 2000 block of Vallette Drive around 7:15 a.m. but located the victim nearby in the 9600 block of Jacobi Avenue. There, they discovered 27-year-old Tyree Matthews, a male, suffering from at least one gunshot wound. Despite the arrival of emergency responders, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation was immediately handed over to the Bureau of Crimes Against Persons, who began piecing together the events that led to the fatal encounter.
Detectives soon identified a suspect, Damion Thomas, and uncovered the personal nature of the dispute. The investigation revealed that Thomas had gone to the apartment of his child's mother on the morning of the shooting. After the woman allowed him inside, he discovered Matthews sleeping in her bed. According to police reports, Thomas became enraged upon finding another man in the residence. Witnesses and evidence suggested that Matthews pleaded with Thomas to be allowed to leave the situation peacefully. However, Thomas fired two shots at him. An autopsy later confirmed that Matthews sustained two gunshot wounds, both of which were fatal.
Thomas was arrested shortly after the incident and initially faced charges of first-degree murder. During the legal proceedings, the details of the confrontation were scrutinized in court. Thomas admitted to shooting Matthews but claimed he acted in self-defense, alleging that Matthews had pointed a gun at him. He further testified that he removed the weapon from the scene and gave it away. However, medical examiner testimony contradicted this account, stating that the wound trajectory indicated the shooter was standing above the victim, firing downward. This forensic evidence undermined the claim of self-defense.
In April 2021, a St. Louis County jury convicted Damion Thomas of second-degree murder for the killing. The trial was one of the first to resume in person following pandemic-related delays. Two months later, in June 2021, the court handed down a sentence of 30 years in prison. The presiding judge and jury rejected the justification of self-defense, holding Thomas accountable for the decision to use lethal force against a man he found in the apartment, bringing a conclusion to the legal chapter of the tragedy.
