Kenneth “Trae” Leaks III, a Black 18-year-old male from Houston, was killed on May 24, 2025. He was identified by name and age in memorial and funeral records that also fix the date of death. Those notices, standing quiet and stark, mark the end of a life that had only just stepped over the threshold into adulthood.
In the weeks before he was killed, the 18-year-old had walked the stage as a Manvel High School graduate, a student-athlete celebrated for his future as much as his
past. Coverage in Texas high school sports media described him as a standout and reported he was preparing to head to Sterling College in Kansas to continue his football career, a plan interrupted so abruptly that graduation decorations were still up in his family’s home when reporters came calling.
On the night of May 24, investigators say the 18-year-old drove to an apartment complex at 5410 North Braeswood Boulevard, meeting someone for a transaction. While he sat in a vehicle, several males approached; one drew a gun and fired. He was rushed to Memorial Hermann Southwest by private vehicle and later died. A 17-year-old male with him was also hit but survived with injuries described as non-life-threatening. The stark choreography of that encounter—a brief meeting, a sudden approach, a flash of gunfire—left a parking lot stained and a family shattered.
Detectives worked the case through early summer, first identifying and arresting an 18-year-old, Zion Armon Mitchell, on June 16. By early September, a second suspect, 19-year-old Miles Julian Edwards, had also been arrested. Both men were charged with capital murder in the death of the 18-year-old and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the wounding of the 17-year-old, with bookings into the Harris County Jail documented by police. The official timeline—arrests in mid-June and late August, charges filed in multiple district courts—sketched a path toward the courtroom even as grief continued at home.
In the community, tributes and remembrances appeared online, with friends and loved ones calling him by his nickname, sharing photographs, and lighting digital candles in his honor. Fundraising pages and memorial posts spoke of a young man remembered for warmth and loyalty, the kind of person whose absence is felt in a hundred small, everyday ways. The notes read like a chorus, each voice adding a detail to the portrait of an 18-year-old who should have been packing for college instead of being laid to rest.
