A St. Louis man has been sentenced to life in prison for gunning down 19-year-old Jadun Byrd in a parking lot in the city's Ville neighborhood in March 2022, as the teen's mother listened over a FaceTime call. Jonathon Jones, now 21, was 17 at the time of the shooting and was certified to stand trial as an adult in July 2024 before being convicted of second-degree murder.
According to First Alert 4, Byrd had taken a Lyft on March 2, 2022, to meet his mother at her workplace, but investigators say a white Dodge Journey drove toward him as he walked through the parking lot and its driver fired multiple shots. Byrd died after being shot multiple times in the 2400 block of Whittier. Per the station's report, Byrd's mother reportedly heard the gunshots and watched her son fall to the ground during the call.
The station notes that surveillance video, according to prosecutors, showed the Dodge Journey following the Lyft Byrd had gotten into and circling the area where he lived before the shooting. Jones's fingerprints were found on the driver's side of the vehicle, and multiple guns were recovered during a search of the home where he was eventually found. Other outlets have offered additional detail on how that surveillance evidence came together: KSDK reported that investigators used Real Time Crime Center cameras to track the SUV, capturing footage of Jones entering the driver's seat 30 minutes before the shooting and exiting 30 minutes after, while two passengers inside the vehicle identified him as the shooter.
A Second Killing Tied to an Earlier Escape
Byrd's murder was not Jones's first. He had already been convicted in July 2024 and sentenced that September to 22.5 years in prison for second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the September 2021 shooting death of 29-year-old Brandon Scott near the Gateway Arch, according to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney, who tried Jones alongside co-defendant Mark Perry following a traffic dispute. Prosecutors have said Jones was on the run when he killed Byrd, having escaped from the St. Louis City Juvenile Detention Center in November 2021 while being held on suspicion in the Scott homicide — four months before Byrd was shot.
The path to prosecuting Jones for Scott's murder was itself marked by delay. In April 2023, then-Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner faced potential criminal contempt sanctions after her office failed to appear for Jones's scheduled trial in the Scott case because the assigned prosecutor had taken medical leave without a replacement, the Associated Press reported at the time, in proceedings that highlighted severe staffing shortages inside the Circuit Attorney's office.
A Mother's Anguish and an Unprovoked Attack
Byrd's mother, Leslie Byrd, told reporters shortly after the killing that the attackers took nothing from her son before driving off, which led family members to believe he had been targeted in a case of mistaken identity, according to Newsweek. Byrd was described as an engineering student with no criminal record. Per REVOLT, Byrd regularly met his mother at work to borrow her car, and he had called her on FaceTime because he was lost after being dropped off on the wrong side of the Homer G. Phillips Health Center building.
Leslie Byrd's own work made the loss especially resonant locally. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that she served as operations director at The Wesley House Association and had previously worked in youth violence prevention at Better Family Life in St. Louis. She reportedly learned that Jones had been certified to stand trial as an adult while she was running a summer camp.
How Missouri Handles Juvenile Certification
Jones's path from juvenile custody to adult prosecution followed procedures set out under Missouri law. Under Missouri Revised Statutes Section 211.071, juvenile court judges must hold a mandatory certification hearing evaluating factors such as offense severity, prior juvenile record, sophistication, and prospects for rehabilitation before transferring a minor into adult court. Jones turned 19 before his certification was finalized.
The state has since revisited how young offenders are handled. In 2024, Missouri enacted Senate Bill 754, raising the general minimum age for certifying juveniles as adults from 12 to 14, while preserving age 12 as the threshold for the most severe violent felonies such as first-degree murder, according to Empower Missouri. The legislation also established statewide tracking of juvenile certification data.
Jones's case unfolds against a backdrop of falling violence in St. Louis. Citywide homicides dropped to 140 in 2025, a 12-year low, as overall Part I crime fell 16% and shooting incidents declined nearly 30% year-over-year, per the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Juvenile shooting incidents specifically fell 17% in 2025 compared to the year before, according to the department's data.
