Kevin Wayne Hunt, 48, male, was found late on the morning of December 26, 2021, near the Tom Erlebach Skatepark by Hunter's Creek Sports Park in Star, Idaho. The Ada County Coroner identified him that week and recorded his death as occurring at 10:30 a.m. on December 26; investigators determined he had been shot and discovered in the park area the day after Christmas.
Detectives soon focused on Hunt's 19-year-old roommate, Dakota Travis Honeycutt of Nampa.
Honeycutt initially told authorities he had watched his roommate take his own life in the park, but within weeks prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder, along with felony counts of grand theft and destruction of evidence, as the investigation contradicted the suicide claim.
In February 2023, Honeycutt pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the shooting, acknowledging his role in Hunt's death at Hunter's Creek Sports Complex. The following May, an Ada County District Court judge sentenced him to up to 35 years in prison, with 15 years fixed before he can seek parole; officials emphasized that he had originally been charged with first-degree murder before agreeing to the plea.
The case closed the questions that had hung over the quiet park where Hunt's body was found on December 26, 2021: there was an arrest, a prosecution, and ultimately a conviction and sentence for the roommate who shot him. Memorial listings later recorded Hunt as one of the lives lost to gun violence in Idaho that winter.
