In the quiet hours of a late November evening in Kansas City, Missouri, a burst of violence shattered the calm, leaving one man dead and a woman seriously injured. On November 21, 2023, police were called to a home near East 70th Street and South Benton Avenue around 11:30 p.m. following reports of a shooting. Upon their arrival, they discovered a distressing scene. A woman was found outside a residence, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to her abdomen.
Despite her life-threatening injuries, she was able to direct the officers to a nearby house where the violence had originated.
Inside the home, in the entryway, officers found 61-year-old Gerald Warren, who had been fatally shot. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The front of the house bore the marks of the attack, with shattered glass in the door and window, and bullet strikes marring the facade. The injured woman, who was rushed to the hospital in stable condition, would become a key witness in the ensuing investigation.
The woman later identified the shooter as her then-boyfriend, Wayne A. Hunt. She told investigators that she had been in a relationship with Hunt for about ten months, prior to which she had been in a five-year relationship with Warren. On the evening of the shooting, she had gone to Warren's home. While she and Warren were in a front bedroom, the window was suddenly shattered. The woman allegedly saw Hunt outside and heard him demand she come out. When she refused, she initially thought he had left, but then heard movement again. Warren, armed with a pistol, went to the front door to investigate, with the woman following behind him. It was then that they allegedly encountered Hunt again, and gunshots rang out, striking both Warren and the woman.
Following the shooting, Hunt reportedly arrived at a hospital emergency room with another woman, claiming he had also been shot. The investigation quickly focused on him, aided by the surviving victim's testimony and doorbell camera footage from a neighbor that captured an SUV matching Hunt's vehicle near the scene before and after the shooting. On November 29, 2023, the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office charged Wayne A. Hunt with second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and two counts of armed criminal action in connection with the death of Gerald Warren and the wounding of the woman.
