’Unapologetically himself’: Kansas City boy killed in suspected murder-suicide mourned
Clad in a crisp tuxedo and bow tie, young Jerel McGeachy Jr. steps up to a microphone and turns on a bit of oratorical flair. There are no nerves written on the 11-year-old’s face. This is familiar territory.
Soon he has the crowd before him in the palm of his hand. Those in attendance aren’t seated for long.
“As of right now we are gathered here this evening in our Sunday’s best, dressed to impress, styling and profiling,” he says. “However, I ask that each of you step out of your comfort zone and stand to your feet.”
He confidently takes those in attendance at a banquet in Wyandotte County celebrating Black history last year through a back-and-forth recitation of a Jesse Jackson quote and then launches into a dramatic performance of excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech from 1968.
He begins behind a lectern but interrupts himself, steps out from behind it and begins to pace back and forth as he talks. He delivers the performance from memory, with force, projecting to the back of the room. He pauses for dramatic effect.
There’s a standing ovation at the end. His mother, Domonique, and father, Jerel Sr., join him on stage. The boy’s father grabs the microphone and pumps up his son. The crowd responds. His mother slips him a quick kiss on his cheek.
Kamiasha Tyner, who met the family that night while handling photography and videography responsibilities at the event, watched as the quiet boy opened up and commanded the moment.
“He was very soft-spoken actually,” she said. “He came alive once he got on stage. Like a lot of performers, they can be introverts, but once you get on stage, there’s no stopping them.”
A little more than a year later, the McGeachy family would be found dead April 1 in their home in Kansas City’s Northland. The three died from bullet wounds in an apparent murder-suicide, according to Kansas City police.
Jerel Sr., 38, appeared to die from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said, noting that they were investigating the deaths of Domonique, 38, and Jerel Jr., 12, as homicides. A police spokesman told The Star this week that detectives are currently awaiting lab results to confirm their preliminary findings.
‘Unapologetically himself’
It was on a spirit day at Wanamaker Elementary School in Topeka last year that Jerel Jr. found himself surrounded by classmates wearing Kansas City Chiefs red. A fan of the Dallas Cowboys, he wore his own team’s jersey and a hat with pride. The class took a photo that featured Jerel Jr. at the center, enveloped in a sea of red.
“He just was unapologetically himself,” said Chelsey Stephenson, a sixth grade teacher at the school. “He didn’t care that there were 18 other kids in here who were all decked out in their red.”
Before his move to Congress Middle School in the Park Hill School District and skipping seventh grade to make an early jump to eighth grade for the 2023-2024 school year, Stephenson watched as Jerel Jr. arrived a few weeks into the school year and found friends right away.
He won the school spelling bee, jumped at any chance for extra credit and learned how to play the trumpet. He picked up “Happy Birthday” for his mom’s birthday.
He’d be tagged as a future president and would insist to his classmates, “Obama’s my uncle!” over and over, well past the point where the joke was fresh. He found joy in making others laugh.
He was gifted academically, mature beyond his years and a strong public speaker. He began reciting King speeches around the age of 7 and became well known in North Carolina, where the family lived previously, and Kansas for his oratory, according to his obituary.
Stephenson could see the youth was destined for great things. But at school, she’d encourage him to just be a kid.
“There’s so much focus on he was so smart, he was so poised, he was a public speaker, he was so great, but he was also just a kid who was just getting started, and he loved to play tag and be silly with his friends,” she said. “I just feel very fortunate that I got to have a little piece of him for just a little while.”
In a memo released by the Park Hill School District earlier this month, Congress Middle School principal Ryan Smith said Jerel Jr. served on the school’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Council, played the trumpet in the school band, was a member of the National Junior Honor Society and was selected as the principal’s student speaker for an upcoming eighth grade celebration event.
“Despite being young, Jerel was already a mature and intelligent kid who was never afraid to speak his mind and stand up for what he believed was right,” Smith said.
On his LinkedIn page, Jerel Sr. was most recently listed as a police officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, based in Kansas. He also worked previously as an educator and as a police officer in North Carolina, The Fayetteville Observer reported.
Domonique, a nurse, spent about four years in the Army and about nine years in the Army Reserve, reaching the rank of captain, according to a service record provided to The Star by an Army public affairs officer. She grew up in Kansas, graduated from the University of Kentucky and was on the verge of completing a doctorate of nursing practice through the University of South Alabama in May, according to her obituary.
Stephenson would chat with Domonique, she said, and found that she was incredibly proud of her son.
“I think,” she said, “that she would want to know the world to really know that he was the joy of her life.”
