MCS-22
The Case of the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
On June 16, 1995, at 1:54 a.m., police responded to Southeast Hospital, where a gunshot victim had arrived by private vehicle.
The victim, Daniel Wade Dunlap, 29, had been shot once in the back, right below the shoulder blade.
Three people had been in the car that brought Dunlap to the hospital. They were immediately interviewed. They reported that Dunlap had been at a bar called "The Taste" on Good Hope Street in Cape Girardeau at 1:00 a.m. They noticed him because he was the only white person in the crowded bar that night. One of the people in the car knew Dunlap from working with him at a wood products company. The people in the car had been at "The Taste" until about 1:15 a.m., when they left to go to the Purple Crackle across the river in Illinois. When they drove back by the Taste thirty minutes later, they saw Dunlap staggering along the sidewalk on Morgan Oak Street.
They initially drove by him, but then decided that they would give him a ride. After they turned around and pulled up next to him, he collapsed on the sidewalk. They first drove him to his apartment, but when they arrived outside his home, he said, "I think I’ve been shot." They quickly drove him to the hospital.
They had no idea who had shot him or how it had happened, but they could give names of other people they had seen at the crowded bar.
Dunlap was pronounced dead at 2:21 a.m. The Major Case Squad was activated.
Witnesses were soon located who had heard gunshots in the Good Hope Street area near "The Taste" at about 1:45 a.m.
Dunlap’s roommate reported that he had last seen Dunlap at 8:00 p.m. A neighbor saw him doing laundry at 9:00 p.m. Patrons of "The Taste" were located who saw him come into the bar about 1:00 and use the bathroom and request a drink. He was denied a drink because it was too close to closing time.
One by one, throughout the night and early morning hours of the next day, bar patrons and people who had been on Good Hope Street that night were identified, located and interviewed.
Eventually, investigators located three separate eye-witnesses to the shooting. They had been among a group of people outside "The Taste" when the while male approached them and asked to buy some drugs. One of the witnesses said that he didn’t sell drugs. The white guy kept insisting that he wanted drugs.
Another man in the group was angered by the pestering attitude of the white male, so he "hit the dude." The dude then "broke off running."
Senikica Blackmon, 16, a friend of the witnesses, then rushed up. He had not heard any of the conversations between the group and the white male. Senikica had been drunk and pulling and flourishing a gun all night long.
"What’s up? You in trouble?" he asked one of the witnesses.
"Naw, Senikica. I’m cool," the witness said.
Suddenly, and without further provocation, Senikica Blackmon pulled a small black .22 caliber handgun and fired twice toward the white male, who was still running away.
The white male kept running down the street. No one could tell that he had been hit.
One of the witnesses grabbed the gun from Senikica and threw it into the grass with other guns the denizens of the night had placed upon the grass. The pile included a Tech 9, a .45 and a .38.
The group kept partying at various places throughout the evening. No one knew anyone had been killed until it was broadcast on the news the next day.
Crime laboratory analysis of the shirt of Daniel A. Dunlap confirmed that he had been shot from a distance.
Senikica Blackmon was located later in the day and arrested. Blackmon first claimed that he knew nothing about the shooting. Eventually, his story changed to having heard some shots, but not having seen what happened. This version evolved into claiming that he had seen the shooting, but naming another person as the shooter. Finally, when confronted with the fact that at least two witnesses had implicated him, Blackmon admitted that he had been the shooter. He admitted firing two shots. He hadn’t even realized he hit the guy until the next morning when he heard that the guy had died. He admitted that the victim had been running away at the time he fired at his back. He had not intended to kill him, just to scare him.
Senikica Blackmon’s confession was videotaped.
Blackmon was later certified for prosecution as an adult.
On December 26, 1995, he pled guilty to second degree murder. On March 11, 1996, he was sentenced to life in prison.