On the night of March 14, 2018, 30-year-old Christopher A. Harris Jr. was driving his eight-year-old daughter home from her dance class. The male victim arrived at a residence in the 16600 block of East 28th Place in Independence, Missouri, intending to drop the child off at her mother's home. As Harris pulled into the driveway, a vehicle that had been tailing them pulled in directly behind his car. Two men exited the trailing vehicle and immediately opened fire.
Harris screamed for his daughter to get inside, and while the young girl was able to run into the house unharmed, Harris was struck by gunfire before he could reach safety. He fell to the ground outside the residence, where one of the assailants approached him and fired two final rounds into him as he lay defenseless, killing him just steps from the door.
Investigators responding to the scene uncovered a calculated plot involving advanced surveillance and a long-standing dispute. Authorities discovered a GPS tracking device attached to Harris's vehicle, which had been used to monitor his real-time movements leading up to the ambush. The investigation revealed that Harris had been the target of a cyberstalking conspiracy orchestrated by a rival associate involved in the local marijuana trade. In the weeks prior to the murder, the perpetrators had sent threatening messages to Harris via Snapchat and had placed multiple tracking devices on his car to learn his daily routine.
Federal authorities eventually charged three men in connection with the assassination. Lester E. Brown was identified as the ringleader who had deployed the GPS technology and directed the attack due to a conflict over drug distribution territory. Brown was assisted by co-conspirators Michael Young and Ronell Pearson, who helped stalk the victim. In May 2023, a federal jury convicted Brown of conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, cyberstalking resulting in death, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was subsequently sentenced to life in federal prison. Young and Pearson both pleaded guilty to their roles in the conspiracy and the fatal operation.
