A 34-year-old man known to friends and fans as Big Wayne was shot dead on his own front porch in north St. Louis, and police say cell phone records and nearby gas station surveillance footage led them straight to a neighbor living just blocks away. Wayne Henderson-Murphy was found shot about 11:40 p.m. on Aug. 4 in the 5600 block of Hiller Place, and more than two weeks later, 32-year-old Walter Alan Fowler is now behind bars facing charges in his death.
Henderson-Murphy, remembered locally as a well-known St. Louis rapper who went by Big Wayne, or sometimes Big Weezy, was pronounced dead at the scene after St. Louis Metropolitan Police District 6 officers responded to the shooting call, according to RiverBender.com. News of his death prompted tributes from fellow musicians and community members, as first reported by VOP News STL, which identified him by family as the local rapper.
Fowler, who lives in the 5600 block of Dryden Avenue — a nearby street in the same north St. Louis area — is now charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He is being held without bond at the St. Louis City Justice Center following his Aug. 20 charging.
Cell Records and Gas Station Video Built the Case
Court documents cited by the Post-Dispatch describe how investigators pieced together Fowler's movements. St. Louis police officer Justin Robben said Fowler's cell phone put him at or near Henderson-Murphy's home more than once on Aug. 3, the day before the shooting. Surveillance footage separately showed Fowler walking toward Henderson-Murphy's home while tucking a gun into his waistband, and later running back to a car parked at a nearby gas station after shots were fired.
The Post-Dispatch's report notes that Fowler was wearing the same clothing in that footage that he had worn earlier that day. Court documents did not provide a motive for the killing, and it remains unclear whether Fowler and Henderson-Murphy knew each other. The station center relies on this kind of cross-referenced cellular and camera evidence — the same combination the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has used in other recent homicide cases, per Hoodline's past reporting on the department's Real Time Crime Center and citywide camera network.
What the Charges Could Mean for Fowler
Under Missouri Revised Statutes § 565.020, first-degree murder is a Class A felony carrying a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole or the death penalty, according to Kranitz, Sadoun & Carpenter, PC. Proving that charge requires prosecutors to establish deliberation beyond a reasonable doubt, a threshold the Post-Dispatch's report suggests investigators are supporting with evidence of Fowler's repeated visits to the block the day before and his matching clothing in the surveillance video.
The armed criminal action count adds its own weight. Under Missouri Revised Statutes § 571.015, that charge carries a mandatory minimum of three additional years in prison with no parole eligibility for the first three years, to be served consecutively to any underlying sentence, according to Combs Waterkotte. Missouri prosecutors regularly pair the two charges to ensure mandatory non-parole detention in violent crime cases.
Another Shooting in a Neighborhood Already on Edge
Henderson-Murphy's death adds to a troubling pattern in Walnut Park West and the surrounding north St. Louis corridor, which has seen repeated gun violence and multiple major homicide investigations. Just weeks before Fowler's arrest, Hoodline reported that a fourth suspect was charged in the 2025 fatal shooting of Jawon Cooper on nearby Park Lane, a case that similarly relied on neighborhood surveillance video.
Citywide, St. Louis recorded 139 homicides in 2025, a 7% decline from the 151 homicides logged in 2024, according to police data reported by Hoodline. But that overall drop hasn't translated evenly across the city — violent crime remains heavily concentrated in specific north side corridors, including the area around Hiller Place and Dryden Avenue where Fowler and Henderson-Murphy lived.
A Broader Pattern of Porch Shootings
This is not the first time St. Louis homicide detectives have leaned on home security footage to crack a front-porch shooting. Police renewed public appeals for surveillance video this summer in the unsolved October 2021 killing of 18-year-old Richard Walters, who was also shot on a porch, a case Hoodline has continued to follow.
A decade-long investigation by St. Louis Public Radio and APM Reports found that between 2014 and 2023, St. Louis police solved fewer than half of homicides involving Black victims, compared with roughly two-thirds of cases involving white victims — leaving more than 1,000 homicides in the city unsolved over that period. Whether additional private home security footage will surface as Fowler's case moves toward preliminary court proceedings remains an open question, as does any motive for why Henderson-Murphy was targeted.
