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Jackson County Prosecutor Announces Charges In 2012 Homicide Of Raytown Jogger

Elle Moxley
/
KCUR 89.3
Jackson County Prosecutor holds up a photo of Harry Stone, the Raytown man murdered while jogging in 2012. His wife, Bobbie Stone, and daughter, Susan Li, also spoke at the news conference.

The Jackson County Prosecutor announced charges Tuesday in the murder of a Raytown man gunned down while jogging near Blue Ridge Boulevard and 67th Street.

Craig L. Brown, 24, faces a single count of second degree murder in the May 13, 2012, shooting death of Harry Stone, 60. Stone described the two men who’d fired at him from a passing car to an anesthesiologist before dying in surgery.

“I kissed him goodbye as he left for his run, for what I did not know at the time was the very last time,” said Stone’s widow, Bobbie Stone, at a news conference. “And I mean the very last time. Because my husband’s body was considered a crime scene, even in death I was unable to touch him, to say goodbye, to kiss him again. I had to do that at a distance of three feet.”

Bobbie Stone, a hospice chaplain, says it “still hurts (her) heart” that she was not able to curl up with her husband in his hospital bed as she has done with many patients.

Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker did not identify a motive for the killing and added that the investigation was ongoing.

“Wouldn’t that be great if there were a why?” Baker said. “Why a man at 60 years old can be jogging down the sidewalk and drop dead of an intentional gunshot. I don’t have a why.”

Baker credited the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for providing a break in the case when a gun recovered last year in a car accident matched the ballistics of the Stone homicide. She also thanked the Raytown Police Department and Chief Jim Lynch, citing the nearly four-year investigation as an example of cooperation among jurisdictions.

“This gives other people who are waiting for justice for their loved ones hope, as I received hope from other long-term crimes I heard on the news had been solved,” Bobbie Stone said.

Bail for Brown has been set at $250,000.

Elle Moxley is a reporter for KCUR. You can reach her on Twitter @ellemoxley.

Elle Moxley covered education for KCUR.
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