KC Unsolved: Detectives struggling to find motive behind fatal shooting on 19-year-old in KCK
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KCTV) - It’s been more than three years since someone shot and killed 19-year-old Jason Lopez-Mena less than one and a half miles from the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. Detectives have since developed a timeline but still have no idea who killed him or even why.
Often, when detectives get called to a homicide, they recognize the victim’s name as someone they’ve had interactions with before. That doesn’t make them less important as victims, but it gives detectives a starting point.
“It helps to know what area to approach, who to go to get information that I think would help,” said KCK Police Det. Danon Vaughn. “But in this case, nothing stood out about Jason.”
Jason Lopez-Mena had no history with police. The phone call that alerted them to the crime came from a neighbor who discovered him dead in his car hours after the time of the shooting. They found surveillance video suggesting someone witnessed the crime, but it did not show the shooting itself.
“We ran through this over and over. No one knows who would be upset with Jason and why they would be upset with Jason,” said Det. Kevin Wells. “Jason was a 19-year-old man who loved music, who played music, wrote music and liked his car. That was Jason.”
Vaughn and Wells are the lead detectives investigating the homicide, which occurred on Nov. 8, 2020.
THE VICTIM
Jason Lopez-Mena’s mother spoke to KCTV5 over the phone, primarily in Spanish. She did not want to appear on camera nor did she want her name to be used. She said she was afraid because, in her words, clearly whoever killed her son is a bad person.
Jason was the third of her four children, born in California on Feb. 6, 2001. She would tell him, “I loved you since I knew I was going to have you. Not when you were born, but when I was pregnant.”
The family moved to Kansas when Jason was 7 years old. His mother was hesitant to move to Kansas but when she visited, she saw the opportunity of a better life. She wanted the best for them.
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He liked to play soccer and to play music. He was inquisitive. When he had surgery on a broken foot, he learned on his own to play guitar and piano. He eventually composed his own songs. His mother called him “an emotional soul.”
He had a girlfriend. He was with her until shortly after midnight on Nov. 8. What happened after that is something police have only pieced together, and there are gaps they a struggling to fill in.
TIMELINE
Police learned Jason had been at a get-together with his girlfriend and some friends at her house near downtown KCK. He left between midnight and 12:30 a.m.
At 6:00 a.m. police got a call from a man who lived at a house at N. 10th St. and Lyon’s Ave.
“The first initial call for service was the resident’s call saying a vehicle had rolled into his parked vehicle that was in his driveway and somebody was inside the vehicle,” Wells said.
The resident had surveillance cameras on his home. Detectives scrolled backwards minute by minute. At approximately 2:45 a.m. it showed Jason’s car, a silver 1996 Mercedes rolling south on 10th Street towards Lyons.
“Not going fast at but just gently rolling down 10th Street,” Wells remarked.
The car slowly veers east into the resident’s parked car. It showed no one inside the car with Jason. It appeared Jason had already been shot.
A POSSIBLE WITNESS
Another camera, facing the opposite direction, showed a man walking north on 10th Street just moments before. Police believe he saw or heard something that could help, but they have no idea who he is. He never came forward.
THE VIDEO EVIDENCE
One camera shows the man walking north on 10th Street, on the west side of the road, towards Reynolds Ave. There is a business, vacant at the time but now a restaurant, on the northwest corner of that intersection.
He is carrying a white, plastic shopping bag. The white bag is what helped police spot him on a second camera, further up the road, even though that area was poorly lit. He had ed Reynolds Ave. when he turned back south towards the vacant business, rounded the corner and posted up against the building.
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“Judging by his body language, it appears he hears something or sees something that makes him change the way he’s walking pretty dramatically, and he basically looks like he’s hiding in a doorway,” described Wells. “That leads us to believe that he either heard the gunshots or he may have witnessed the incident.”
As he’s taking cover, Jason’s car rolls by. After it crashes, the man can be seen walking back to the corner, looking north, a bit skittish, then going west on Reynolds.
If police knew who he was, it could help them to pinpoint where the shooting happened and possibly how. Did the gunfire come from another car? Did it come from someone standing nearby? Did it come from somewhere out of view?
THE MISSING PIECES
He’s not the only one who could help. They’d like to know if anyone saw Jason between 12:30 a.m., the approximate time he left the get-together, and 2:45 a.m., the time his car crashed.
They’d like to know if anyone heard gunshots at the time of the morning.
“Did he have a run in with somebody at a club? Was there an argument? Was it a road rage situation?” Wells asked. “Does anybody know anybody that was shooting guns off at three o’clock in the morning recklessly? Any little bit of information will help.”
HOW ANONYMOUS TIPS CAN HELP
They are hoping someone can give them direction, even if they want to avoid interacting with police. That’s why the Greater Kansas City Crimestoppers TIPS Hotline exists.
“You have people that are out there that are like, ‘I’m not coming to court. I’m not gonna cooperate. I don’t like the police. I’ve been arrested eight times.’ I get it,” said Vaughn. “I still need what you have.”
When you call the TIPS Hotline, you don’t give any personal information. You get a randomly generated code called a TIP ID number assigned to you along with a . You use that ID number and to check on the status your tip. It is also how you collect a reward of your tip leads to an arrest and successful prosecution.
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The reward in this case is up to $5,000.
“The main thing is that we get that information so that you’re helping your neighbor solve, you know, this horrific crime that took their child from them,” said Vaughn.
“You’re just not helping the police. You’re helping Jason’s family,” echoed Wells.
THE IMPACT
Jason lived with his mother. If Jason was home, there was always noise. He was always up to something. The house was full of music with his guitar playing. Now, the house is quiet. She wonders what he would be doing now. Would he be married to his girlfriend? Would they have children?
She shared a family photo despite her fear, because she wanted to send a message to his killer.
“I want the person who dared to take my son’s life to know that not only did [the killer] take Jason’s life, [the killer] took away a future full of aspirational dreams,” she wrote in a text message. “Jason was a young man of family. The day Jason died destroyed an entire family.”
She said time doesn’t heal the pain. It compounds it. Every day is a reminder of how much she misses him. She lives but with a part of her missing.
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