In the cold of a Minnesota winter, the life of James Jeffrey King Sr., a 57-year-old male, came to a tragic and violent end. On the morning of February 9, 2022, he was discovered inside his pickup truck, parked in the driveway of his home in the North End neighborhood of Saint Paul. He had been shot in the head and, according to his family, was left wounded in his vehicle for nine hours before he was found.
First responders rushed him to Regions Hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition.
For weeks, King clung to life as investigators began the difficult task of piecing together who was responsible for the shooting. The community was left searching for answers, and the Saint Paul Police Department urged anyone with information to come forward. Despite the ongoing investigation, no immediate arrests were made in the case, which marked the city's ninth homicide of the year. After fighting for nearly three weeks, James Jeffrey King Sr. succumbed to his injuries on March 1, 2022.
The investigation into his death continued, and a break in the case came a little over a month later. In April, police arrested 27-year-old Kavion Jayvon Barnett of Saint Paul in connection with the fatal shooting. While Barnett was apprehended for his suspected role in King's death, he was also facing charges for a separate drive-by shooting that had occurred just days after King was attacked. At the time of his arrest for the homicide, formal charges against him in the King case were pending. The arrest brought a potential answer to the senseless violence that took a man's life in his own driveway.
