According to investigators, surveillance, witness accounts and a white Ford Fusion helped build charges in the death of Richaud Conley.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The homicide case against 19-year-old Ke’Montae Phillips rests heavily on cameras, car tracking and witness statements, with Jackson County prosecutors alleging that Phillips fatally shot 21-year-old Richaud Conley on March 10 after following him and his mother through an east Kansas City neighborhood.
What gives the case its immediate weight is not only the killing itself, but the unusually detailed trail investigators say they assembled before charges were announced. Prosecutors say footage from city cameras, a church camera, a civilian dash camera and police resources linked a white Ford Fusion to the shooting near 55th Street and Chestnut Avenue. Phillips now faces second-degree murder and armed criminal action counts and remains jailed on cash-only bond.
The public record begins with a short timeline from the prosecutor’s office and then opens into a broader reconstruction in the probable cause affidavit. Detectives say they were dispatched at 5:49 p.m. March 10 to a shooting scene in Kansas City and found a male victim with gunshot wounds. That victim later died at a hospital and was identified by local media as Richaud Conley, 21. But much of the affidavit is not about the final minute of gunfire. It is about movement before the shots. Investigators wrote that Conley’s mother described an earlier confrontation roughly a week before the homicide, tied to Conley’s breakup with Phillips’ sister. She said a young man had made angry comments about the relationship and struck her son, while another male nearby carried a rifle-style weapon. Detectives treated that earlier encounter as a key sign that the later violence may have been planned rather than sudden.
From there, the affidavit follows a white Ford Fusion that police say appeared near the route taken by Conley and his mother. Detectives wrote that the car was captured by an automated license plate reader at 5:42:44 p.m. with a temporary Kansas tag as it moved through the area. But they traced its movements earlier too. According to the affidavit, the Fusion entered a Family Dollar parking lot at 5:28 p.m., crossed into a Phillips 66 lot and parked. Two young men got out. One, police wrote, wore a black jacket, red shorts and a black head covering. The other wore tan clothing and appeared to have a long object under his jacket. Investigators called their actions odd because the men moved the car from a parking stall to a gas pump, went inside, made a cash purchase and left without pumping fuel. The affidavit says the passenger in tan seemed focused on the intersection where Conley and his mother would later pass on foot.
The timeline in the affidavit narrows as the victim and his mother approach the same area. Detectives wrote that from about 5:38 to 5:40 p.m., Conley and his mother stopped at an intersection and spoke with a man who was petitioning nearby. At 5:39 p.m., investigators say, the suspect vehicle returned eastbound after having left westbound and parked again for a short time. By 5:41 p.m., both the victims and the suspect vehicle were moving east. A church camera, according to detectives, captured a vehicle similar to the Fusion driving north at 5:43 p.m. Police wrote that the street layout meant the car would have had to turn back toward the area where the victims were walking. Then, at about 5:42 to 5:43 p.m., the victims crossed southbound lanes and continued on foot. Dash camera footage later captured the shots at 5:45 p.m., investigators said.
The affidavit then returns to the human account at the center of the case. Conley’s mother told detectives her son had seemed scared when he met her that day and told her, in substance, that people were following him. She said he had a rifle tucked into his pants, though police wrote that neither he nor his mother managed to use it when the shooting began. The affidavit says the same male from the week-earlier confrontation approached and asked something like, “you clutching?” before pulling out a rifle-style weapon with a red laser and opening fire. She told police her son shielded her while they ran. When she realized he had been shot, she started CPR. The court record says neighbors came out to watch and assist. Another witness later reported seeing the woman move a rifle during the aftermath and apparently discharge it once accidentally before resuming aid.
Physical evidence in the case mirrors the witness accounts, according to detectives. Officers reported recovering 27 .300 Blackout casings between northbound lanes in the area, plus six 9 mm casings on the east side of the scene. In a vacant lot where investigators say the victim fled, police found a spent .223 casing and marks in the dirt that appeared to show bullet paths. Witnesses gave similar descriptions of the sound pattern, detectives wrote: a burst of automatic gunfire followed by five or six single shots from what sounded like a smaller-caliber weapon. One witness partly recorded the scene on a dash camera while driving through the area, and two others said they saw a white sedan parked in the middle of the block with two males outside around the time of the shooting. The affidavit does not publicly explain whether the 9 mm or .223 evidence came from the victim’s gun, another weapon or post-shooting handling.
The identification of Phillips comes in layers. Detectives wrote that police department resources identified the driver seen in red and black as Phillips. The affidavit says a computer check of the Ford Fusion’s plate showed the car was registered to a woman whose daughter had been documented in a 2023 police report as Conley’s girlfriend. The record also says the daughter had ties to apartments near the scene, which matched what Conley’s mother told officers. Detectives later sought a search warrant for a residence. An adult woman there said Phillips drove her vehicle but denied knowledge of the homicide. When Phillips was interviewed, police wrote, he denied involvement and said the person in a photo looked like his twin. Yet detectives also wrote that he identified Conley as “the guy that got murdered” before they had told him the person shown was the victim. He later asked for an attorney, ending the interview.
That evidence package is now moving into the court process. Prosecutor Melesa Johnson announced the charges March 17. A judge set Phillips’ bond at $250,000 cash only. A bond review was scheduled for Wednesday, and a preliminary hearing is set for April 15. What remains unresolved in the public record is whether a second suspect will be charged, whether investigators have recovered the main weapon described in the affidavit, and how prosecutors will present the layered video evidence when the case reaches its next stage.
Author note: Last updated April 14, 2026.