Black Mom Becomes A Better Detective in Her Son's Death Than Cops
Highlights: In the wee hours of July 8, 2020, 37-year-old Freddie Lee McKee was found dead in Columbia, Mo. Authorities say two 911 calls went out before his body was found. Earlier, around 2:45 a.m., a neighbor called reporting a shirtless man in her trash who told her he was looking for his phone, per the police report. Then, around 6 a.m, the police received another call but from Freddie Gardner, McKee’s father, reporting that his son was dead on his front porch.
Columbia Police Department Detective Steve Wilmoth, the main defendant in the suit, didn’t arrive to investigate until an hour passed, per police documents. The suit says within 15 minutes of being at the scene, he declared the case closed. McKee’s death was written off as just another drug addict overdose, documents show.
But that wasn’t going to fly with Doressia McKee, Freddie’s mother who has placed her grieving process on pause until she figured out the truth.
For the past three years, Ms. McKee, 63, has been leading her own investigation into the sudden death of her son. In her latest move on the chessboard, she filed a scathing lawsuit alleging the lead detective rushed to dust his hands of the case out of his own racism.
Wilmoth didn’t note examining McKee’s body nor investigating the injuries listed in his autopsy including abrasions to the head and various wounds and lacerations all over his body. Per the police report, it seemed he went with whatever the Boone County Medical Examiner’s Office told him: that there was “no trauma or obvious cause of death.”
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