James “Little” Daugherty, a 27-year-old Black / African American male from Charleston, West Virginia, was shot in the early morning hours of June 4, 2022, in a downtown parking lot near Hale Street and Kanawha Boulevard. The shooting was reported around 2:00 to 2:10 a.m. in the Spyros parking lot, a place that sat in the middle of Charleston’s downtown nightlife district. When Charleston police arrived, they found Daugherty wounded from multiple gunshots.
He was taken from the scene to a local hospital, but the injuries were too severe, and he died a short time later.
In the hours after the shooting, Charleston police began treating the case as a homicide and searched for the person they believed was responsible. Investigators with the police department’s Criminal Investigation Division followed leads from the scene, and authorities asked anyone who had been in or near the parking lot when the gunfire erupted to come forward. The killing added to growing concern in downtown Charleston, where residents and business owners were already uneasy about violence around parking lots and late-night gatherings.
Later that same day, police identified a suspect: Meeko Harris, 23, of Beckley. Authorities said Harris was wanted in connection with Daugherty’s death and sought him on charges of first-degree murder and wanton endangerment. Police said Harris had ties to both Beckley and Charleston, and the search for him quickly moved beyond the city. Within about a week, Harris was located in Osceola County, Florida, where he was arrested with assistance from U.S. marshals.
After his arrest in Florida, Harris was brought back to West Virginia to face the charges. He was arraigned in Kanawha County Magistrate Court after being extradited and was held to await further court proceedings. Reports from the time stated that he was charged with murder and wanton endangerment, and later reporting said a Kanawha County grand jury indicted him in the June 4 shooting death of Daugherty. The indictment included a first-degree murder charge, and other reporting also listed a firearm-related charge connected to the commission of a felony.
Daugherty’s death left behind more than the facts of a police report. Funeral and memorial notices remembered him as James “Little” Daugherty, born in Charleston in 1994, and described him as an HVAC specialist with family and loved ones grieving his sudden loss. The public record of the case shows that investigators quickly named and arrested a suspect, and that the criminal case against Meeko Harris moved forward through extradition, arraignment, and indictment.
