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White Men In Kansas City Have Been Shot Dead By Possibly Racially Motivated Serial Killer

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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A 22-year-old black man in Kansas City who once said he wanted to “kill all white people” has been charged with murdering two middle-aged white men and is suspected of killing three more.

Fredrick Demond Scott was charged Tuesday in the murders of Steven Gibbons and John Palmer.

Gibbons, a 57-year-old Kansas City man, was found dead Aug. 14 after being shot in the back just after getting off of a city bus. Video footage showed an unidentified black man also exiting the bus and following Gibbons just before he was shot.

Evidence found at the scene of that murder led police to Scott, a former Burger King employee who has had a few run-ins with the law in the past.

Police were able to match DNA from a bottle found at the scene of Gibbons’ death to a cigarette Scott discarded outside of a Kansas City gas station. DNA was also found on a t-shirt left at the scene of the Aug. 19, 2016 murder of Palmer.

Investigators also suspect Scott in three other killings — David Lenox on Feb. 27, Timothy Rice on April 4, and Mike Darby on May 18.

All of the men are white males between the ages of 54 and 67. According to KMBC, three of the men were walking their dogs on Indian Creek Trail or close to it.

Investigators have yet to determine if the killings were racially motivated, but Scott’s past comments about white people raise the question. And as The Kansas City Star notes, the number and pattern of the killings would make Scott a serial killer by FBI standards.

According to The Star, Scott said in Jan. 2014 that he wanted to murder white people and to carry out a Columbine-style shooting at his school. Scott was cited for harassment by the school, and a city citation quoted him as saying: “I want to shoot the school up, Columbine-style.”

He also said he wanted to kill himself and “all white people.”

Scott’s mother, for whom he was accused of assaulting in 2013, told the Kansas City Star that she did not believe her son has animosity towards whites.

“As far as I know Fredrick never had a problem with white people,” his mother told The Star. “He would do odd jobs for people and some of those people were white men.”

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