Shirley Johnson, a 55-year-old woman, was killed on March 31, 2026, in St. Louis, Missouri, after an ordinary ride home with her grandson turned into a deadly confrontation outside her home in the Kingsway West neighborhood. The shooting happened in the 5100 block of Cote Brilliante Avenue, where Johnson had been sitting in a car with her grandson, Markel McCurry, after what was described as a routine trip to a corner store.
According to reports, McCurry was dropping Johnson off at about
9 p.m. when the vehicle he was driving allegedly backed into a neighbor’s car. That neighbor was later identified as Jamal A. Jones. What appeared to be a minor vehicle dispute escalated almost immediately. McCurry said he heard a gunshot but did not at first understand that his grandmother had been hit. He got out of the car and tried to talk with Jones about the alleged damage, saying he was willing to pay for it if Jones would show him where the car had been struck.
As McCurry tried to make sense of the situation, he realized Johnson had been wounded. She had been shot while still inside the vehicle. Reports citing court documents said she was struck in the back. She was taken to a hospital, but she was pronounced dead after arriving there. The suddenness of the shooting left McCurry describing the moment as unreal, saying his grandmother had been killed right in front of him.
Investigators said Jones admitted that he fired the shot. According to details reported from a probable cause affidavit, Jones allegedly told police he opened fire to intimidate McCurry so that he would not hit his car again. He also allegedly made a statement indicating that he would rather have shot McCurry than Johnson. After the shooting, McCurry reportedly restrained Jones until officers arrived and took him into custody.
Jones, 32, was arrested and charged in connection with Johnson’s death. Reported charges included first-degree murder, armed criminal action, unlawful use of a weapon, and assault. Some accounts also described multiple armed criminal action counts tied to the incident. The case was presented as a killing that grew out of a car-related dispute, with prosecutors alleging that Jones’s decision to fire into or toward the vehicle caused Johnson’s death.
Afterward, McCurry spoke publicly about the loss, describing Johnson as the person who helped hold his life together after his mother died. He said she was loving and caring, and that she was more than a grandmother to him. He remembered the everyday messages she would send when she cooked, the kind of small family routine that made her absence even harder to process. What began as a minor collision outside a home ended with Johnson dead, her grandson grieving, and a neighbor facing a murder case.
