On August 30, 2015, Timothy Leon Gunter Jr., a 23-year-old male, was tragically killed in a shooting incident in the St. Louis suburb of Wellston, Missouri. The violent event unfolded in the early morning hours when police officers responded to a call reporting a shooting on the 6300 block of Lenox Avenue around 1:00 a.m. Upon arrival at the scene, law enforcement discovered Gunter's body located at the rear of a residence.
He had sustained fatal gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. The investigation was immediately undertaken by the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, who began interviewing witnesses and following leads to identify the perpetrator.
Investigators soon zeroed in on a suspect, identified as 27-year-old Brandon Anthony Tate. According to reports and subsequent court testimony, the shooting was not a random act but the culmination of a conflict involving Gunter and his associates. On the night of the murder, Tate was driving a black vehicle with a passenger, Michelle Jefferson, when they passed Gunter walking down the street with two other men, Dennell Jones and Quincy Pirtle. Gunter reportedly identified Tate to his companions as they passed. Tate then circled the block, accelerated his vehicle toward the three men, and shouted a racial slur and an aggressive remark through the open window before opening fire.
Brandon Tate was arrested on September 4, 2015, and initially charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action, with his bond set at $500,000. During the subsequent trial in September 2017, prosecutors presented evidence that Tate fired multiple shots from the driver's side window, striking Gunter. Testimony from witnesses, including the passenger in Tate's car and Gunter's companion Dennell Jones, corroborated the sequence of events. The court also heard evidence regarding a prior altercation roughly a week before the shooting, where Tate had punched Gunter's half-brother, Leavie Morris, providing a potential motive for the continued hostility.
On September 27, 2017, a jury in St. Louis County found Brandon Tate guilty of first-degree murder, a more severe charge than the initial filing, along with two counts of armed criminal action and one count of unlawful use of a weapon. Following the conviction, the court sentenced Tate on October 26, 2017. He received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder charge. Additionally, he was sentenced to concurrent terms of ten years for each of the armed criminal action counts and the weapons charge. The conviction was later affirmed by the Missouri Court of Appeals in 2019.
