Roderick Silinzy, a 40-year-old Black man, was fatally shot on the afternoon of May 22, 2018, in the College Hill neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. Silinzy was driving in the 2100 block of Linton Avenue when gunfire struck him. After being wounded, the vehicle continued moving and crashed into a vacant residence. Emergency responders found Silinzy at the scene, where he was pronounced dead. Early reports from St.
Louis police did not identify a suspect or disclose what investigators believed had led to the shooting.
The killing soon attracted additional attention because Silinzy had been a witness in another St. Louis homicide investigation. That case involved the June 8, 2017 shooting death of Gentrall Wafford. According to reports about the investigation, Wafford was killed during what authorities described as a robbery attempt and was reportedly trying to defend Silinzy when the gunfire erupted. Terrance Williams and Brandon Cross were subsequently charged in connection with Wafford's death, making Silinzy an important potential witness in the prosecution.
Authorities later alleged that information identifying cooperating witnesses in the Wafford case had circulated among people connected to the defendants. Investigators said Cross obtained documents containing the names of witnesses who were cooperating with prosecutors and that Williams later relayed witness information to Anthony “Big Ant” Demyers. Prosecutors accused Demyers and Larry “Poppy” Strickland of attempting to pressure Silinzy and two other witnesses into refusing to cooperate or testify. Both Demyers and Strickland were charged with witness tampering, but reports at the time specifically noted that neither man had been charged with killing Silinzy.
Silinzy's death intensified the investigation into possible witness intimidation. After the killing, authorities began monitoring telephone calls made by Williams from jail. Court documents described several calls in which prosecutors alleged Williams instructed Strickland to take action concerning other witnesses in the Wafford prosecution. The allegations raised serious questions about whether the pressure placed on witnesses was connected to Silinzy's death, but the publicly reported criminal charges stopped short of accusing Williams, Strickland, Demyers, Cross, or anyone else of carrying out Silinzy's murder.
The related criminal proceedings continued for nearly two years. In January 2020, Williams stood trial on six counts arising from the Wafford case, including first-degree murder and a witness-tampering allegation connected to Silinzy. Williams argued that the Wafford shooting had been self-defense, while prosecutors maintained that Williams had been the aggressor. The jury acquitted Williams on all six counts, including the witness-tampering count associated with Silinzy. Strickland, meanwhile, pleaded guilty and received an 18-month sentence, with the time he had already spent jailed credited toward that sentence.
Although the witness-tampering investigation established that authorities believed Silinzy had been subjected to pressure because of his role as a witness, the available reporting does not identify anyone as having been arrested, charged, tried, or convicted for Silinzy's actual killing. His death therefore remained separate from the convictions and acquittals arising from the surrounding witness-intimidation investigation, leaving the identity of the person who shot him publicly unresolved in the sources located.
