Police still seek key evidence in Columbia man’s 2019 shooting death

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

More than six years have passed since James Hickem was shot to death in a north Columbia neighborhood, and police have yet to obtain any key evidence in his case.

Officers responded to the scene in the 600 block of McBaine Avenue at 8:13 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2019. Police found a man with gunshot wounds and later identified the victim as 23-year-old James Hickem. The Columbia man was taken to the hospital and later pronounced dead.

Lt. Matt Gremore with the Columbia Police Department Criminal Investigations Division was one of the first people to respond that night.

"I was a patrol sergeant working the midnight shift," Gremore told ABC 17 News in an interview last week at the shooting scene. "When I first got here, there was just me, and I think maybe one or two other cops had shown up."

Hickem was the fifth homicide of a violent two-week period in September 2019. Columbia hit a 20-year high with 12 deadly shootings, one later declared justified. Six people were killed that September.

"When we have one homicide for the Detective Bureau, you're talking months of work, and that's if it's solved that day that it happened," Gremore said. "So you can only imagine having so many within a short time period that it's all hands on deck. Everybody's just working homicides at that point, and it's extremely busy, it's exhausting."

Gremore said they found Hickem with gunshot wounds in the grass near the corner of McBaine and Lynn Street.

"I was talking to him, but he couldn't respond back," Gremore said. He believes Hickem could not respond due to the severity of his wounds.

The night of the shooting

Hickem's grandfather, Willie Smith, says he remembers that night as if it were yesterday.

"They were all over to my sister-in-law's, and they went to the liquor store, Loop Liquor," Smith said. "They went and got some beer and some other spirits, then came back. It couldn't have been no more than 5 minutes when I heard shots."

Smith was inside the family home at the time of the shots.

"I didn't know James had walked outside with his uncle," Smith said. "It was him that came to the house and said James had just been shot."

Gremore would not reveal much about the evidence, citing the need to ensure the integrity of the investigation. But he said for the first time publicly that video had been collected from the scene.

According to Gremore, no weapon was ever recovered. However, police found shell casings at the scene.

"With most shootings, you're going to find shell casings. I can't get into numbers," Gremore said.

Smith said he heard four shots that night.

"I remember 'dah, dah, dah, dah,'" Smith said.

Smith said Hickem had been going back and forth between Las Vegas and Columbia. He had been visiting Columbia for a few weeks at the time of his death. In Vegas, Hickem lived with Smith and his wife, who are Hickem's maternal grandparents.

However, Hickem still had his mom and other family in Columbia.

"James had a job here [in Las Vegas] working security at one of the casinos," Smith said. "James had every reason to come back here; he lived here with us. He had moved here with us as a matter of fact."

Smith and his wife had come to Columbia for a Mizzou Basketball event; they were also going to bring James home to Vegas with them. Smith was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 for his time with the Tigers.

Targeted shooting?

Gremore and CPD are still unsure of the motive behind Hickem being shot, but he believes there was an intention behind it.

"I don't think that this was a mistake that somebody just happened to go and kill James," Gremore said. "Only the killer is going to know what the motivation was or the real story behind why what happened happened."

Smith described his grandson as a gentle giant, but Smith didn't feel the same about some of the people Hickem hung around.

"He thought, 'Because you're my homie, I'm down with you,'" Smith said. "I just thought he was overzealous to take on other people's problems."

Smith said he never witnessed Hickem be violent and didn't know him to carry a gun or weapon. He said on the day of his death, Hickem did not show any signs that he feared for his life. However, Smith noted an altercation that he and Hickem had seen earlier that day on McBaine Avenue.

Smith said it just seemed like a minor spat involving lots of shouting, though.

Gremore said CPD has fewer than 10 people it considers "persons of interest" in the shooting. He said police have talked to fewer than 10 witnesses to the crime.

"If someone saw or even if they heard someone say that they did that murder, that they knew this information first hand, that someone confessed to them that they did. Obviously, there's stuff that we would do an our in to verify all this information, but those are credible things that could be said that could go to court," Gremore said.

Gremore detailed a frustrating reality amongst the killings that happened that month.

"There's a person of interest that today is just still as true as it was the day that information came out," Gremore said. "Being able to prove something, to arrest someone, is very different than hearing rumors of what happened, which is very true for all the homicides that happened in 2019."

Smith believes someone close to James knows what really happened that night.

"His uncle, he was right there. Honestly, I believe he knew who it was to this day," Smith said.

Smith said he believes Hickem's uncle has been uncooperative with police because of his criminal history and a culture around not speaking to police for fear of retaliation.

"This is your damn nephew that's been gunned down," Smith said. "Open your damn mouth, that's what I told him when law enforcement came over there to interview him. People don't want to talk because they fear retaliation? That's the biggest crock I have heard."

Gremore said he believes every homicide in Columbia is solvable.

Smith said his family feels forgotten after six years and no answers in Hickem's death.

"I feel cheated, I certainly feel cheated. If it was a white kid, we'd have a whole different outcome six years later," Smith said. "I just think some things, some deaths seem to be more important than others, and we resent that. I resent that."

Gremore said CPD has found no evidence that Hickem's death was related to any of the other September homicides.