On the morning of May 10, 2022, tragedy struck at the Swope Plaza Apartments in Kansas City, Missouri. At approximately 9:00 a.m., 31-year-old Terylle M. Gorham, a Black male, was reportedly on his way to a local grocery store to purchase items for a barbecue when his life was cut short. Residents in the vicinity of East 49th Street and Bellefontaine Avenue heard the sound of gunfire disrupt the morning quiet.
When officers from the Kansas City Police Department arrived at the scene, they discovered Gorham lying in a parking lot, collapsed beneath a truck. He had sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency medical personnel.
Investigators quickly began canvassing the area for clues, locating several spent. 45 caliber shell casings near the victim. Witnesses provided critical information to the police, with one resident reporting that a man known as 'Paul' was the suspected shooter and lived nearby. Further inquiries led detectives to a residence on Bellefontaine Avenue. Additional witness accounts and surveillance footage from the apartment complex helped piece together the events leading up to the shooting. One witness observed a man walking with Gorham inside the complex just moments before the shots were fired, noting the suspect had a handgun tucked into his waistband. Security video reportedly captured the suspect walking to the location of the homicide and later returning with what appeared to be a gun in his hand.
The suspect was identified as 60-year-old Paul Wright. Police located him the following day during a traffic stop near Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Benton Boulevard, where he was a passenger in a blue pickup truck. A search of the vehicle’s glove box revealed a. 45 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. Preliminary ballistic testing suggested a potential link between the recovered firearm and the shell casings found near Gorham's body. Wright, who had a previous federal conviction for armed bank robbery from 1995, was taken into custody.
Following the investigation, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office charged Paul Wright with second-degree murder, armed criminal action, and unlawful possession of a firearm. Prosecutors requested a cash-only bond of $500,000. Gorham’s death left a void in his family, including his four children, one of whom was an infant at the time. His mother, Angelique Collins, later spoke out about the safety conditions at the apartment complex where her son was killed, expressing her grief and the need for justice for her son, whose life she emphasized had deep meaning beyond becoming a statistic in the city's homicide count. As of the last available reports, Wright was awaiting court proceedings for the charges filed against him.
