Nelson Hall Jr., a 28-year-old man from St. Louis, was killed in the predawn hours of June 21, 2022, after gunfire turned a drive through north St. Louis into a violent wreck. Just before 4 a.m., police were called to the area of Page Boulevard and Temple Place, where an SUV had slammed into a fire hydrant in the 1300 block of Temple Place. Inside the vehicle, Hall and a woman, Angela Kabugu, were found with multiple gunshot wounds, and both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators said the shooting happened while the pair were driving, and the impact of the gunfire was followed almost immediately by the crash. The SUV came to rest at the edge of the grounds of Christ’s Southern Mission Baptist Church, leaving a stark, chaotic scene that mixed the evidence of a traffic collision with the unmistakable signs of a homicide. Police indicated both victims had been shot more than once, suggesting the attack was sustained rather than a single stray shot.
For months, the case lingered with the details of that early-morning discovery—two lives ended, the vehicle wrecked, and no immediate public resolution. Nearly a year later, the investigation reached a turning point when prosecutors announced charges against a suspect. On May 30, 2023, Edd Johnson, 31, was charged by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of armed criminal action in connection with the deaths of Hall and Kabugu.
A warrant was issued for Johnson’s arrest, and reporting at the time indicated he would be held without bond. As the case moved into the court system, the public record of the investigation—once defined mainly by the image of a crashed SUV and the quiet shock of a double killing—shifted to the more formal language of charges and custody, marking the moment when investigators and prosecutors said they had identified who they believed was responsible for the gunfire that led to the fatal crash.
