On the night of November 11, 2019, 46-year-old David Como was making his way home in Kansas City, Missouri, after getting off a bus near 56th Street and Park Avenue. He had arrived at his stop just before midnight, a routine part of his evening commute. Shortly after he began the walk to his residence, the quiet of the neighborhood was shattered by the sound of gunfire. When police officers responded to a medical call in the 5600 block of Park Avenue just past 12:30 a.m.
on November 12, they discovered the male victim lying lifeless against a chain-link fence. He had been shot, and his death was immediately classified as a homicide.
Detectives faced a scarcity of immediate leads, but a meticulous reconstruction of the evening’s timeline provided the first breaks in the case. Surveillance footage from the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority bus confirmed that Como had exited the vehicle at 11:47 p.m. Further investigation into the neighborhood yielded audio from a residential security camera, which captured the distinct sound of three gunshots ringing out only minutes after he had started walking. The recording also picked up the noise of car doors slamming and a vehicle speeding away from the scene. Despite these clues, the identity of the assailant remained unknown for months as investigators worked to process physical evidence left behind.
The turning point in the investigation came from forensic analysis of the victim’s clothing. DNA swabbed from the back left pocket of Como's pants was entered into a criminal database, eventually returning a match to Douglas V. Griffin, a Kansas City resident who was already in custody for an unrelated robbery committed in October 2020. When detectives interviewed Griffin in early 2021 regarding the Como case, he initially denied any involvement. However, when confronted with the DNA results placing him at the scene, his story shifted. He admitted to reaching into Como’s pocket to steal a wallet but claimed that an accomplice had been the one to pull the trigger.
Subsequent monitoring of Griffin’s communications from jail dismantled his attempt to deflect blame. In recorded phone calls, he was heard admitting to his mother and others that he had participated in the murder. In one conversation, he confirmed that surveillance footage and DNA had linked him to the crime and confessed to being the shooter, stating that he reacted because he thought the victim was 'trying to do something.' Following these revelations, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office charged Griffin with second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, and two counts of armed criminal action in January 2021. Later that same year, Griffin faced additional charges for a separate, unrelated homicide that had occurred in August 2019, further implicating him in a string of violent acts across the city.
