Not ‘another statistic’: Family remembers KC father of 2, recalls details of shooting

Shelia Brooks has suffered an irreplaceable loss – her 35-year-old son is gone.

But what makes her heartbreak worse, Brooks said, is knowing that whoever is responsible is still out there, living as if it never happened.

“I want to see the perpetrator face-to-face,” Brooks said. “I’m prayerfully hopeful that justice will be served.”

Chris Beaugard meant the world to his mother, and to many people in his life. Two daughters who adored him, a girlfriend who loved him, an aunt who called him her friend and a grandmother who remembers his smile. His Oct. 30 murder has left a family hurting, wondering who could’ve done this.

But several family members were there the night he was killed, including Taylor Arinze, who said she thinks she saw who shot her brother-in-law.

“He didn’t do anything to anybody,” she said. “I can’t make it make sense.”

Spotted in the dark

After 7 p.m. that evening, Arinze said she was at her sister’s Kansas City apartment at East 93rd Street and Bales Avenue, which also belonged to Beaugard. Arinze and her sister, Tashee Yankah, were about to run an errand.

While Yankah lingered inside for a few minutes, Arinze walked outside the apartment. But something made her stop in her tracks.

Arinze noticed two people hanging around the back of Beaugard’s mother’s vehicle, talking. It was dark, but one individual looked like a young adult. The other seemed to be even younger, perhaps not even yet a teenager, according to Arinze.

Arinze grabbed her lighter and lit a cigarette. From what she could see, both figures had dark skin, and the taller individual wore a dark jacket with a light color on the bicep and hood. The hood appeared to have some sort of design on it.

The seemingly older person wore red and white shoes and looked to be about 5’10” to 6’, she said. The second figure was much shorter.

She called out in the dark, “Is everything alright?”

The voices fell silent, and Arinze immediately sensed that something was wrong. She hopped in the car and called her sister, who had her pull around the other side of the building to pick her up.

Yankah called Beaugard to tell him that someone was messing with his mother’s truck. The sisters pulled out of the parking lot and had begun to drive away when Beaugard ended the conversation, saying, “I’ll call you right back.”

That’s when Arinze said she heard a pop sound, and the two started to panic. Unable to contact Beaugard, the women began to drive back in an attempt to find him. Then, Arinze said she saw the person with the light-colored hood running toward an apartment complex on East 95th Street and Bales Avenue.

But after pulling back into the apartment parking lot, they couldn’t find Beaugard. They called Deanna King, Beaugard’s aunt who lived in the complex next-door.

Deanna King said she opened the door and found Beaugard on her back patio, wounded. His pulse was faint.

Beaugard died surrounded by Deanna King, Yankah and Arinze.

Arinze said the license plate on the truck belonging to Brooks – Beaugard’s mother – appeared to be tampered with. Brooks said her license plate was later stolen.

Police responded to the scene around 7:45 p.m., according to Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesperson with the Kansas City Police Department.

As of Tuesday morning, no arrests have been made in connection with Beaugard’s murder.

‘They took him’

Each family member who spoke with The Star – his girlfriend, his sister-in-law, his mother, his aunt, his grandmother – all painted the same portrait.

Beaugard was a loving, patient man who cared for his two daughters more than anything else.

“He was such a genuinely loved person,” Deanna King said. “Everything he did, he did with the intention of making his daughters’ lives better.”

His mother mourns the fact that she won’t be able to see him face-to-face in this life.

“I will never, ever touch my son again, I will ever hear his voice again,” Brooks said. “I will never see his smile again on this earth.”

Beaugard loved tinkering with old cars, but his daughters, 11-year-old Christiana and 5-year-old Adriana, took up most of his time. Christiana celebrated her 11th birthday in late November without him. Yankah called Beaugard an “amazing person,” and said she mourns the fact that her daughter lost her father.

Adriana was looking forward to her school’s father-daughter dance, said Beaugard’s grandmother, Elaine King. They had been practicing, talking about what they would wear.

Now, the family is concerned with how seriously law enforcement is handling Beaugard’s case. Brooks said she doesn’t want her son to be treated as “just another Black man killed.”

“I just don’t want him to be another statistic,” Brooks said. “I want them to treat this as if he were their own son.”

Elaine King also said she doesn’t want the severity of the crime to be overlooked because of Beaugard’s race. She wants the community to know that he was an incredible person who treated everyone kindly, especially his family.

“I feel in my heart, if it would’ve been a white man or woman, something would’ve been done now,” Elaine King said. “I ask God every day. I want it solved.”

Beaugard’s youngest daughter asked Elaine King why she couldn’t give her father a hug and kiss goodbye. She called the killing “senseless,” and said something needs to be done about the gun violence issue that only seems to be growing worse.

She urged anyone with information to come forward.

“They took him,” she said. “There was no need to.”

The family has set up a GoFundMe to pay for his daughters’ and girlfriend’s expenses.

Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477). There is a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to an arresting in the case.