KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Independence’s new Cold Case Reward Program served as a reminder to Kentral Gray’s family that he hasn’t been forgotten.
“I fell in love when I heard his heartbeat,” Gray’s mother, Jacqueline White, said Wednesday at the family’s south Kansas City, Missouri, home.
Gray weighed 9 pounds, 4 ounces and was 22 inches long when he was born Feb. 28, 2001.
“At 3 months, 4 months old — he snatched his first cookie, and from that point, I called him ‘Tooka’ because he took a cookie,” White said with a laugh.
The only thing larger than Gray’s appetite was his sense of humor.
“He was a goofball,” White said. “He made any and everyone laugh. If you had a bad day, he’d come in and strike that smile with that one dimple, and you just knew that you were going to have a better day on account of him showing up.”
It’s been four years since Gray died from a single gunshot wound to the temple as he slept in a friend’s bed in the 3800 block of Blue Ridge Boulevard.
White admits to feeling helpless and hopeless at times since her son’s May 22, 2021, murder.
“It got to the point where I just honestly felt like they just looked at him like another Black boy out in the street doing dirt or doing wrong,” she said. “I just felt like they threw him by the wayside.”
Then came word last week that the Independence City Council had allocated additional reward money for information in his homicide investigation.
“Out of all the cold cases you guys have in Kansas City, and my son, my baby, was chosen for one of the five — that means a lot to me,” White said. “... It lets me know that my son was not forgotten about.”
Gray’s homicide is one of five unsolved cold-case homicides Independence has included in the Cold Case Reward Program.
The city council voted April 21 to allocate $100,000 for the program, adding $10,000 to the reward in each case and setting aside another $50,000 for investigative needs, like retesting DNA or following up on new leads.
Realizing Gray’s case would get renewed attention renewed White’s hope. She knows solving his murder won’t bring her son back, but it may bring a measure of peace.
“I keep searching for that heartbeat, and I don't hear it; I will never hear it again,” she said. “I keep waiting for him to ring the bell and say, ‘Momma, I’m hungry,’ or walk in my room with them big, wet, juicy lips and give me a kiss directly here on my forehead. ... I am so very much still in love with my son. I miss him.”
Anyone with information on Gray’s murder or any other homicide in the Kansas City region can report it to the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted online at KCCrimeStoppers.com or via the free P3Tips.com mobile app.
All tips are anonymous, and tipsters “are eligible to receive a cash reward if the information given leads to an arrest or grand jury indictment of a felony offender,” according to Crime Stoppers.
Typically, a $25,000 reward is offered in homicide cases, but it’s at least $35,000 in Gray’s case and the four other homicides — Diana Ault in 1994, Lakota Renville in 2005, Jevon Basler in 2008 and Aerrion Burnett in 2020 — included in Independence’s reward program.
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KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
