A Kansas City man has been sentenced to prison for the fatal stabbing of a 23-year-old woman in her apartment in 2019.
Keyon D. Patterson, 29, has been sentenced to life in prison, which in Missouri is 30 years, for the killing of Ladajah Oliver, according to a news release from the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office.
Patterson was charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the weeks after Oliver was found dead. He was also charged with stealing. He pleaded guilty to all three counts in March.
On top of the life sentence for his second-degree murder conviction, Patterson also faces 30 years for his armed criminal action conviction and seven years for stealing. The judge ordered that the three sentences run concurrently, with credit for time served.
In 2019, Oliver’s body was found a little after 1:30 p.m. March 15 at Park Highlands Apartments in the 6400 block of Manchester Avenue, according to the Kansas City Police Department.
A witness at the time told police that she last saw Oliver two days earlier when Oliver bought an SUV, according to court records. When she hadn’t heard from Oliver, the witness went to her apartment to check on her. There, she found the Oliver dead. Her SUV was also missing.
A medical examiner ruled that Oliver had been stabbed multiple times, court records show.
At the scene, detectives said that it looked like a struggle had taken place, according to charging documents. They noted the large amount of blood found around the home, including a bloody hand print on a piece of furniture. Oliver’s cell phone was also missing.
Surveillance video taken at the apartment complex showed Oliver and a second person wearing dark-colored clothing parking at 11:16 p.m. on March 13, court records how. Then, at 1:13 a.m. the following day, the video showed the subject in dark clothing getting into Oliver’s vehicle and driving away.
Police found Oliver’s missing SUV on March 15 near 51st Street and Swope Parkway, about a block from Patterson’s apartment, according to court documents. The vehicle was abandoned, and the inside was covered in blood.
Oliver’s family and friends told police that she’d been in a romantic relationship with Patterson for about a month prior to her murder, court records show.
Detectives interviewed Patterson four days later. Police noticed he had a recent injury on his hand, between his thumb and forefinger, according to charging documents. He told police that he knew Oliver, and that they met on Facebook and had been hanging out for about a month.
Patterson told police that he’d last been to Oliver’s apartment in February, and that he’d never ridden in her new SUV, court records show. By April, prosecutors said analysis of DNA from the bloody hand print found inside the apartment in March allegedly showed DNA from Oliver as well as Patterson.
Police also gathered Oliver’s cellphone records, which showed the last four calls on her cellphone were from a phone number that belonged to Patterson, according to court records. Cell tower mapping of the phone allegedly showed it near the victim’s apartment on March 13 and March 14.
Text messages exchanged between Oliver and Patterson were also found on Oliver’s Apple watch. The March 13 texts indicated Oliver was picking up Patterson so he could spend the night at he apartment.
Patterson was taken into custody on April 11.
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