A late-night homicide call in Walnut Park West led detectives from a wounded victim to cameras, phone data and a murder charge.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — When officers reached a home on Hiller Place late Aug. 4, they found 34-year-old Dwayne Henderson-Murphy suffering from gunshot wounds on a porch, beginning an investigation that would soon extend beyond the block to a nearby gas station, a residential security camera and cellphone records.
The immediate scene offered police two urgent problems. Henderson-Murphy had been critically wounded, and another man had been hit by a vehicle while crossing West Florissant during the gunfire, according to local reporting on the police investigation. Henderson-Murphy later died from his injuries. The other man was treated at the scene, First Alert 4 reported. Investigators have not said that the vehicle that struck the pedestrian was involved in the shooting, leaving that collision as a separate event that happened amid the violence rather than a confirmed part of the homicide.
Police were dispatched around 11:40 p.m. to the Walnut Park West neighborhood. The reports available publicly do not describe an extended confrontation on the porch, identify an eyewitness who saw the shooter fire or say that officers recovered the alleged weapon at the house. Instead, the case that emerged over the following days was assembled largely from records created before and around the shooting. Those records, police say, point to Walter Fowler, 29, who now faces one count of first-degree murder and one count of armed criminal action.
One of the first pieces in that reconstruction was a camera installed at Henderson-Murphy’s residence. Police said Fowler appeared on a Ring security camera at the back door earlier on Aug. 4. Public accounts do not say why he was there, whether he entered the home, whether he spoke to Henderson-Murphy or whether the visit was expected. The video’s stated importance is narrower: investigators say it places Fowler at the residence before the fatal shooting and provides an image against which later surveillance footage could be compared.
Detectives then looked to a business near the home. Surveillance footage from a nearby gas station allegedly captured Fowler later in the day wearing the same clothing seen in the residential video. According to the probable cause statement as reported by First Alert 4, the footage showed him getting out of a car, moving toward Henderson-Murphy’s home and appearing to tuck a firearm under his arm. Police said he was then seen running back toward the vehicle after shots were fired. The publicly available reports do not identify who owned or drove the car.
Cellphone records added a third layer. Investigators said the data placed Fowler at or near the Hiller Place residence multiple times that day and near the scene when the shooting occurred. That claim is central to the state’s probable cause narrative because it links the earlier camera image to the later period surrounding the gunfire. The public summaries do not disclose the technical source of the location information, the size of the geographic area it covered or whether prosecutors have additional digital records, such as messages or calls, that might explain the visits.
Seen together, the three sources of information form the backbone of the accusation described in court records: a home camera allegedly shows Fowler at the residence earlier; commercial surveillance allegedly captures him approaching the area later while carrying what police say was a gun; and phone data allegedly places him nearby repeatedly, including at the time of the shooting. None of those assertions has yet been tested at trial. A probable cause statement is used to support an arrest and criminal charge, not to decide guilt, and Fowler is presumed innocent unless the prosecution proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The charge of first-degree murder gives the prosecution’s theory an additional legal dimension. Missouri prosecutors must ultimately prove the elements of the charged offense, including the required mental state, through admissible evidence. Public reports of the Fowler case do not quote investigators describing an argument, threat, financial dispute, personal feud or other reason for Henderson-Murphy’s killing. No motive has been announced. That means the charging narrative presently available to the public emphasizes conduct and movement around the scene rather than an explanation of what allegedly prompted the attack.
The lack of a public motive also limits what can responsibly be said about the repeated visits. Police say Fowler’s phone was near the residence more than once and that he appeared on the home camera earlier, but the reports do not establish why he returned or whether every location signal corresponds to a visit to the property itself. Describing those records as evidence of repeated presence is different from assigning a motive to them. Authorities may possess information that has not been made public, but no reviewed source provides a verified explanation for the alleged sequence.
Local reports also differ on a narrower point about the response to Henderson-Murphy’s injuries. An early First Alert 4 account said he was taken to a hospital and later died, while another report said he died at the scene. Because the accounts agree on the facts most important to the criminal case — that officers found him shot on the porch and that the wounds were fatal — the precise location at which he was pronounced dead remains unresolved in the public reporting reviewed for this story. No other material conflict changes the basic outline of the accusation against Fowler.
After investigators developed Fowler as a suspect, prosecutors filed the murder and armed criminal action charges. Reporting from FOX 2, republished by AOL, identified the charging authority as the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office. Fowler was ordered held without bond, according to court records cited by local outlets. The reports reviewed for this story do not include a public statement from Fowler or a lawyer responding to the homicide allegations, and they do not identify a later plea or trial result.
A separate set of charges against Fowler has also appeared in coverage of the case. First Alert 4 reported that he faces first-degree assault, drug trafficking and possession of a controlled substance in another matter. Those accusations are not evidence that he committed the Henderson-Murphy homicide and should be kept distinct from the Aug. 4 case. Public reporting does not describe a conviction in the separate case. The murder prosecution must stand or fall on evidence tied to Henderson-Murphy’s death, not on the existence of unrelated pending allegations.
For Henderson-Murphy’s family and for the criminal court, the unanswered issue is not simply whether Fowler was in the neighborhood, but what the evidence can prove about the fatal shooting itself. The publicly described record does not say whether investigators recovered shell casings that were forensically linked to a weapon associated with Fowler, whether gunshot residue testing was performed, whether any witness identified him as the shooter or whether additional camera footage captured the shooting. Those gaps in public information are not proof that such evidence does not exist; they mark the limits of what authorities and court reporting have disclosed.
Fowler has been charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action and held without bond. No publicly reported motive, plea, trial date or final disposition was found in the reviewed material. The case therefore remains defined by the path investigators say they followed from the porch on Hiller Place outward: first the scene, then nearby cameras, then digital location records, and finally the criminal charges that will have to be tested in court.
Author note: Last updated September 29, 2026.