On July 26, 2019, tragedy struck in the small community of Riverview, located in St. Louis County, Missouri, involving 49-year-old Arthur Hodges. An African-American male described by those who knew him as a hardworking individual with deep family ties, Hodges had just returned to his residence at the Chevelle Apartments after a shift at work. According to reports from his fiancée and investigators, he had already entered his home but realized he had forgotten an item in his vehicle, a blue
Pontiac G8 sedan. When he returned to the parking lot to retrieve the item around 1:00 a.m., he was confronted by a stranger in what authorities classified as an armed carjacking.
During the encounter, the assailant fired a weapon, fatally wounding Hodges before fleeing the scene in the stolen Pontiac. Officers from the St. Louis County Police Department responded to the shooting, but the suspect had already escaped with the vehicle and some of the victim's personal property. Law enforcement issued an alert for the stolen car, which was spotted hours later, around 6:30 a.m., by police personnel. When officers attempted to initiate a traffic stop, the driver refused to yield, leading authorities on a high-speed pursuit that lasted approximately 20 minutes and extended from the county into the city limits of St. Louis.
The chase concluded violently at the intersection of Goodfellow Boulevard and Maple Avenue, where the suspect crashed the stolen vehicle into a sedan occupied by two bystanders, both of whom suffered minor injuries. The driver attempted to flee the crash site on foot but was quickly apprehended by a police canine unit. The suspect was identified as 20-year-old Joshua Harper. Following his arrest, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged Harper with a litany of serious offenses, including second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, assault, and armed criminal action. He was subsequently held on a cash-only bond as the case moved through the legal system.
