In the early morning hours of April 26, 2016, a visit to family in Salina, Kansas, turned tragic for Adonis Denell Loudermilk, a 32-year-old Black / African American man from Lincoln, Nebraska. Emergency services responded to a call of shots fired at the Starlite Motel on East Pacific around 6:13 a.m. In the north end of the motel's parking lot, they discovered Loudermilk on the ground, having sustained a fatal gunshot wound.
It was later determined that he had been shot multiple times.
The investigation that followed swiftly identified a suspect, DiAntre Lemmie. By 8:38 a.m. the same morning, a pursuit involving the Salina Police Department and the Kansas Highway Patrol was underway. The suspect's vehicle, a white pickup truck, was pursued south on North Santa Fe. The chase was unexpectedly altered when a long train crossed the street near the intersection with West Lincoln. The truck veered off-road, driving parallel to the railroad tracks for several hundred yards before becoming stuck in a muddy, vacant lot. Lemmie then fled on foot but was quickly apprehended by law enforcement.
The subsequent investigation revealed that the fatal shooting was the result of a botched robbery orchestrated by Lemmie and an accomplice, 25-year-old Amber Craig. Both were arrested and faced charges related to Loudermilk's death. Prosecutors laid out a case detailing a conspiracy between Lemmie and Craig to rob Loudermilk with a gun, a plan that ultimately led to his murder.
Amber Craig eventually reached a plea agreement, pleading no contest to charges of second-degree murder, aggravated robbery, and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. She also pleaded no contest to a separate charge of trafficking methamphetamine while in jail. For her role in the events that led to Loudermilk's death, Craig was sentenced to nearly 31 years in prison. DiAntre Lemmie, the man who shot Loudermilk, went to trial and was found guilty of first-degree murder and five other related charges. He was sentenced in June of the following year. A third individual, Tyi Daniel, who was in the truck with Lemmie during the chase, was charged with obstruction of apprehension or prosecution.
