In the summer of 2020, a welfare check at a Denver apartment led to a grim discovery that left a community in mourning. On the morning of July 8th, police officers entered an apartment on East Albrook Drive to find the bodies of two teenage boys, 14-year-old Xzavier Collier and his 15-year-old friend, Moses Chaney Harris. Both young men had been fatally shot, their lives cut short by an act of violence that remains, to this day, officially unsolved. Xzavier was a male, not a female as some initial information may have suggested.
The investigation into the deaths of Xzavier and Moses became intertwined with a broader and more complex criminal case. The apartment where the two teenagers were found belonged to 22-year-old Kalani Hayter, who herself was a victim of a homicide. Her death, along with the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Yaun Yae Long at a liquor store a few days prior, was part of a violent chain of events. While a suspect, 16-year-old Jayque Owens, was eventually arrested and sentenced in connection with the deaths of Hayter and Long, no charges have been publicly announced specifically for the murders of Xzavier Collier and Moses Chaney Harris.
In the immediate aftermath of the discovery, the Denver Police Department appealed to the public for any information that could lead to a suspect in the double homicide of the two teenagers. The community held vigils, remembering Xzavier and Moses as beloved sons and friends. Despite the arrest and conviction in the connected murder cases, the specific circumstances that led to the shooting of Xzavier and Moses inside that apartment, and who is responsible for their deaths, have not been officially detailed in public reports. The case of their untimely deaths leaves a painful void and unanswered questions for their families and the wider Denver community.
