Erin Renee Williamson, a 19-year-old woman from Kansas City, Missouri, died on February 6, 2009, in a killing that also took the life of her boyfriend, Aaron Benton.
In the days that followed, what surfaced publicly wasn’t a tidy explanation of why it happened or who did it, but the quieter evidence of a life abruptly interrupted: her name printed in a death notice, a date that didn’t make sense to the people who loved her, and a gathering planned so her family and friends could say
goodbye. Funeral services were held the following Saturday, February 14, at Boone Tabernacle C.O.G.I.C. on East 12th Street, with burial at XII Gate Memorial Gardens.
Aaron Benton’s death notice ran alongside the same grim date, placing his service that morning at Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church, with burial also at XII Gates Memorial Gardens. Two young lives, two services on the same winter Saturday, and a shared resting place—details that underline how closely the tragedy was linked, even when the public record offers little about the moments that led up to it.
As for the investigation, the most direct publicly available statements tied to Erin Williamson’s case do not name a suspect, describe an arrest, or outline charges, trials, or convictions. In fact, a public memorial entry citing the Kansas City Star death notice explicitly notes that the crime had not been solved as of August 11, 2009, suggesting that—at least by that point—no resolution had been announced.
