JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

More than a month has passed since KCUR reporter Aviva Okeson-Haberman was lying on a bed reading in her first-floor, East Side apartment when someone fired a bullet through the window and fatally wounded her.

The fact that five weeks have passed and no one has been arrested and no prime suspect appears to have surfaced makes me think two things…First, the theory that she took a bullet intended for another woman who lived in the same building is off base. Second, that the chances of solving the case may well turn on whether the shooter keeps his mouth shut.

I’m now fairly convinced this was a random but intentional shooting. I said in an earlier post I don’t buy the stray bullet theory at all.

To me, it seems likely the killer lived in the neighborhood, which is very rough and where residents are all too familiar with the sound of nighttime gunfire.

A woman I spoke to when I was reporting in the area of 27th and Lockwood speculated that it was a case of someone who had recently acquired a gun and was testing it to see if it worked and was accurate.

That challenges the imagination of people living in peaceful neighborhoods but it’s not implausible. Right next to Haberman’s building is an alley that in all likelihood would have been pretty dark at night. Contiguous with the alley are parking spaces for residents of the three-story, brick building where the 24-year-old Haberman lived. Her bedroom was at the rear of the building, and a shooter would have been at least 30 yards from the facing street, Lockwood, and 100 yards or so from Benton Boulevard, to the west.

In other words, there would have been little chance of the shooter being noticed, unless someone just happened to come out of the apartment building or pull into the alley.

Another possibility is that it was gang related. We’ve all heard that some gangs require fledgling members to show their mettle by killing someone…anyone. Then there’s the possibility — awful to contemplate — it was racially motivated. This is a Black neighborhood, by and large. Perhaps a young hooligan, one used to roaming the area and looking for trouble, happened to see Aviva, a white woman, in a vulnerable position (the blind in her room was up so it would have been fairly easy to see inside) and took a potshot.

Now, let’s consider the “unintended victim” theory.

Regular readers will recall I reported in my earlier post that the New York Post, a notoriously irresponsible newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, had published a story quoting a woman who lives in an apartment adjacent to Haberman’s as saying she believed the bullet was intended for her. The woman, 26-year-old Sadi Sumpter, told the Post she believes the shooting could have been a botched hit meant for her and arranged by her ex-boyfriend, whom she described as a drug addict and a convicted felon.

While possible, it struck me as improbable, partly because the ex-boyfriend, who is (or was) in prison, knows exactly where the ex-girlfriend lives, which is across the hall from Haberman’s apartment. I think it extremely unlikely that either the ex-boyfriend or the supposed “hit” person would have confused the west and east sides of the building.

Further casting doubt on that theory is that the person the ex-boyfriend supposedly lined up to kill the ex-girlfriend was his new girlfriend, a woman who reportedly has 13 children…I heard that from a good source just this weekend.

As soon as I heard that, I dismissed the mistaken-identity theory. First of all, when would a woman who has 13 children — if that is actually true — have time to go to the range and practice her marksmanship?

More basically, how many women are involved in planned killings? Very few. And how many are involved in planned killings outside their homes? Far fewer.

So, from the New York Post, we’re supposed to believe that a woman with 13 children was skulking around the night of Thursday, April 22, gun in hand, not exactly sure where her victim lives, takes a shot from shoulder height, and, bam, hits her right in the head from a distance of 10 to 20 feet?

Nope. Not buying it.

**

So, how does this case get solved? Well, sadly, I don’t have a lot of confidence in the KCPD’s homicide division. In a recent story (not about Haberman) The Star said said that of 176 homicides that occurred in KC in 2020, police cleared just 91. That’s slightly more than 50 percent. Nationally, the clearance rate for homicides was 61 percent.

If you’ve watched The First 48, one of my favorite TV shows, you know that a good percentage of homicides get solved because the killers start running their mouths — either boasting or feelings of guilt or stupidity.

That’s probably what it’s going to take to solve this case. Maybe the killer has already talked and has just been lucky no one has reported it. Maybe he has kept quiet. Someday, though, he’ll probably let it out, if he hasn’t already. Generally, it’s only hardened killers who can keep something like that under wraps.

In any event, this is one of the most puzzling murders KC has seen in a long time. I hope the homicide detectives down at 12th and Cherry are pulling out all the stops on this one.