A 26-year-old man has been sentenced to 18 years in the Kansas Department of Corrections for gunning down 15-year-old December Htoo inside a Kansas City, Kansas, laundromat back in 2017 — a gun was recovered during a Lenexa traffic stop in September 2021, about four years after the killing, and the case later went cold again before being moved to KCKPD’s Cold Case Unit in May 2024. A Wyandotte County judge handed down the sentence to Luis Samano on Oct. 13.
According to FOX4 Kansas City, Samano pleaded guilty in August to one count of second-degree murder in connection with Htoo's death. Htoo was a high school student working at the laundromat when he was killed, according to the Kansas City Star, which described him as a 15-year-old high schooler shot to death in his own workplace. Htoo was found dead inside the laundromat he worked at near 34th and Gibbs, according to detectives.
There is conflicting reporting on the exact date of the shooting. KSHB 41 reported that a fellow employee found Htoo shot to death inside the Maple Hill Laundromat on Nov. 18, 2017, while KMBC 9 reported that Htoo was closing up the laundromat on South 34th Street on Nov. 17, 2017, when he was shot and killed. Either way, the killing left investigators with almost nothing to go on. The station's report notes the laundromat's own security camera system was not working that night, and nearby cameras failed to capture anything useful, leaving the case without witnesses or meaningful physical evidence for years.
A Traffic Stop Finally Breaks the Case Open
The break came in September 2021, when Lenexa police recovered a gun during an unrelated narcotics traffic stop. The same report notes that weapon would ultimately be tied to shell casings recovered from the scene of Htoo's killing. By 2022, a forensic lab test by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation confirmed the gun was the murder weapon, per the Star.
That same year, Kansas City, Kansas, police formed a dedicated cold case unit, and Htoo's file landed with that team in May 2024, as reported by KSHB. Investigators have said the unit's renewed attention helped uncover more answers in a case that had gone quiet for years once the gun was linked back to Samano.
Surveillance Footage and a Vehicle Tie Samano to the Scene
Detectives also connected a vehicle caught on camera near the laundromat to Samano, placing him at the crime scene the night Htoo was killed. KMBC reported that a cold-case detective, identified as Szewc, was able to link exterior surveillance footage from the scene to a vehicle tied to Samano. Investigators identified Samano as a suspect through interviews and surveillance footage, and the Wyandotte County District Attorney's Office charged him on July 11, 2024, with felony premeditated murder and aggravated attempted robbery, according to KMBC.
At the time of Htoo's killing, Samano was 17 years old. By the time he was charged in 2024, he was already incarcerated at Larned Correctional Center, where he had been serving time since 2019 for unrelated crimes. Court records cited by FOX4 indicate Samano had previously been convicted of two counts of aggravated arson and theft out of Johnson County.
Community Grief Followed the Original Killing
Htoo's death drew attention beyond Kansas City at the time, with ABC News reporting on family and friends mourning the teen refugee who was killed at the laundromat, many of them left asking why he had been targeted. That grief lingered for years without answers, as the case went cold after the initial investigation stalled, only to be revived once detectives linked the recovered gun back to Samano years later.
With the guilty plea and sentencing now finalized, the case closes nearly nine years after Htoo was killed as a teenager just trying to finish his shift at work.
