Prosecutors say an overnight argument ended with a 32-year-old woman dead beside the SUV where the couple had been sleeping.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A 37-year-old Kansas City man has been charged with second-degree murder after prosecutors said he shot his girlfriend during an argument outside a house with a basement recording studio, leaving her dead in a backyard early March 22.

Demario McGee was charged the next day with murder, two counts of armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon after police found 32-year-old Katrice Williams on the ground outside a gold Chevrolet Traverse on East 62nd Street. The case matters now because prosecutors have moved it into court, police have outlined witness accounts and McGee’s own statement, and a judge has already set a $250,000 cash-only bond as the homicide investigation continues.

According to court records, officers were dispatched just after 3 a.m. Sunday to a reported shooting at a residence in south Kansas City. In the backyard, they found Williams with gunshot wounds to the neck near the SUV where investigators said the couple had been staying. Paramedics pronounced her dead at 3:18 a.m. Officers also found McGee in the backyard and described him as erratic. Prosecutor Melesa Johnson said in announcing the charges that the case stemmed from a fatal shooting that happened the day before in south Kansas City. Police records say witnesses had been inside the house, where McGee had come to use a recording studio in the basement, when they heard three shots and rushed toward the backyard.

The charging narrative says several witnesses told police they heard arguing between a man and a woman before the gunfire. One witness reported hearing the argument and then seeing a man in a light-colored hoodie running toward the back of the property. Another said the sounds of gunfire were followed by McGee walking away and then returning after a short absence. When witnesses first came outside, the records say, McGee appeared calm. Later, they said, he was yelling that someone had shot his girlfriend. Investigators said witnesses also told them McGee sometimes carried a 9 mm handgun. Police have not publicly described any other suspect, and prosecutors have not suggested that anyone else fired a weapon. The case file released so far does not answer whether surveillance video, shell casing analysis or gunshot residue testing will play a central role later in court.

Investigators said McGee waived his Miranda rights and told detectives that he and Williams had gone to the house so he could record music. He said the couple had been homeless and had been sleeping in the gold Traverse. During the night, according to the probable cause statement, he went outside more than once to ask Williams to come inside because he hoped they could stay at the house for the night. Police say Williams resisted, the two argued, and McGee later said he felt emasculated by the way she was talking to him. The statement says Williams told him she was going to leave. McGee then told detectives he started firing into the air to scare her and said the gun might have discharged as he raised it. Investigators treated that account as an admission tied to the fatal shooting rather than as an accidental, unexplained event.

The legal posture of the case is already clear in several respects, even as many facts remain for later proceedings. Prosecutors charged McGee with second-degree murder under Missouri law, along with armed criminal action counts tied to both the killing and the alleged display or use of the firearm, plus one count of unlawful use of a weapon for exhibiting the gun in an angry or threatening manner. A judge set bond at $250,000 cash only. The prosecutor’s office said charges are accusations and that McGee is presumed innocent unless he is convicted or pleads guilty. No public court filing released so far gives a hearing date for a preliminary examination or indicates whether defense lawyers will challenge the wording of McGee’s statement, the witness timeline or the recovery of the firearm that police say he told them he threw several houses away after the shooting.

The setting adds to the starkness of the case: not a bar district, not a traffic stop, but a residential backyard behind a home where music recording was underway in the basement while Williams remained in the SUV outside. That detail appears repeatedly in the public record because it explains why other people were inside the house yet did not see the shooting itself. Their accounts instead build the soundscape of the night: arguing, then three shots, then movement in the yard, then a man returning in distress. The death of Williams, 32, turned what may have begun as a dispute over where the couple would spend the night into a homicide case built on fragments from several witnesses, a dead woman beside a vehicle and a statement police say came from the man now accused of killing her.

Currently, the case remains in its early court stage as of April 15, 2026, with McGee jailed on a cash-only bond and prosecutors pursuing homicide and weapons counts while investigators continue building the record for the next hearing.

Author note: Last updated April 15, 2026.