'A spiritual, demonic force': Community reacts to homicide

Less than 24 hours after Anthony Lynn Hempstead was shot to death, about 50 people gathered for a vigil at the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Pacific Street to call for community unity to stop the violence in the South Cape Girardeau neighborhood where he was killed.

Hempstead, 26, was found just after midnight Saturday with multiple gunshot wounds in an alley in the 800 block of Jefferson Avenue, the Cape Girardeau Police Department reported. Hempstead was taken to a local hospital, where Cape Girardeau County Coroner John Clifton pronounced him dead.

The Cape Girardeau/Bollinger County Major Case Squad is investigating.

Clifton said an autopsy is scheduled for 1 p.m. today.

Hempstead's aunt, Shaton Hunt, said her nephew was "just laid back and to himself" and was attending barber school, trying to do something with his life.

The Rev. Byron Bonner urges community members to come forward with any information they might have in the shooting death of Anthony Hempstead. Bonner, pastor of True Vine Ministries downtown, helped organize the event with Cape Girardeau School Board member Lynn Ware. (Lindsey Jones)

She said she didn't want to believe what happened.

"All we can do now is just continue to pray and let it reveal itself. I just feel real heavy, just real lost. We'll get through it; we'll make it," Hunt said, adding she needs to be strong for her sister, Evelyn Hempstead, the victim's mother.

At this stage of the investigation, police do not have reason to believe Hempstead's death -- the city's second homicide of the year -- is connected to a shooting that occurred less than five and a half hours earlier in the same area of town, said Sgt. Jason Selzer of the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

"There's nothing in the case to connect it," Selzer said Saturday. "We have no indication right now that they're related."

The earlier shooting, which occurred just before 7 p.m. Friday in the 1100 block of Cousin Street -- about four blocks from the alley where Hempstead was killed -- left a man in serious condition with gunshot wounds, Sgt. Adam Glueck of the Cape Girardeau Police Department said Friday evening.

The victim in that case was taken to a hospital by private vehicle, Glueck said. He did not know the extent or location of the victim's injuries.

Pastor Byron Bonner of True Vine Ministries and Lynn Ware, Safe Communities coordinator with the Cape Girardeau Police Department, organized the vigil Saturday evening. The gathering was meant for the community to come together; urge residents to give any information to police on the incidents that have occurred in the area; ask men to walk the streets; express love to the young people; and pray, Bonner said.

Ware asked people to drop off anonymous notes with her or at the police department or call Crimestoppers at 339-6312 to give an anonymous tip.

"In this crowd, somebody knows something," she said.

Ware asked rhetorically whether people knew what happened to the belongings of people who are killed without their murders being solved. She informed the crowd their possessions are put in a box that's taped shut and put on a shelf, she said.

"I've been here almost 40 years. Enough is enough. I want it stopped. We want it stopped," she said.

Bonner said the only way the community will win this battle is through spirit, not retaliation.

"What we're fighting is a spiritual, demonic force," he said. "I'm part of this community. We've got children, grandchildren. We've got to come together and let the enemy know we're not having this.

"This is the beginning. We're going to take our community back. ... Starting today, tonight, there's a new thing coming. If we want results, we've got to do things differently. We've got to come together. It doesn't matter if we're black, white, Hispanic, your church or someone else's church; we've got to come out of it."

And if people know something, they need to share it, Bonner added.

Cape Girardeau City Councilor Shelly Moore said recent events in the area have been "very disturbing."

"I've seen the people hurting. I've prayed, and I don't know what to to think. Hopefully, we'll change things. We want things to change, so it will be safe for everyone. ... I've just been overwhelmed with the shock of things," she said.

Apostle JoAnn McCauley of the House of Prayer said she was called to the streets.

"It's time for each and every one of us to raise up the pride on the south side. ... We can band together to make a difference. ... Where there is unity, God commands the blessing," she said.

Ronald Ervin, whose brother was killed in 2010, said he's lived in the neighborhood for a year and a half. He said nothing has changed, and things are getting worse. He would like to see more police presence in the area.

"Water follows the path of least resistance, and that's what criminals do," he said.

Ervin said police should "stay off Kingshighway looking for speeders," and if someone "has the nerve" to tell police what they know, police shouldn't "throw them to the wolves."

He said no one is telling police anything because they don't trust them.

"If you flag them down because something's happening, they wave at you," Ervin said.

Sgt. Rick Schmidt of the Cape Girardeau Police Department, who attended the vigil, said police can't solve crimes alone; they need the public's help.

Schmidt said the neighbhorood hasn't always been like this.

"The type of crime, it moves," he said. "It goes from neighborhood to neighborhood, depending on how vigilant the community is. It's so vital that we have open communication with the community. We can't do it ourselves."

Online court records show Hempstead was on probation after pleading guilty to drug possession and DWI in 2012. He had been sentenced to seven years in prison but was released in August after undergoing drug treatment, online court records show.

Hempstead previously had pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance in 2006 and one count of second-degree drug trafficking in 2009.

June has been a violent month in Cape Girardeau, with at least four shootings -- two fatal -- in the city and another north of town in Cape Girardeau County.

Joshua Edward Dibert, 34, was shot to death June 20 in a vehicle near the intersection of Henderson Avenue and Good Hope Street, about seven blocks from the alley where Hempstead was killed, and about three blocks from the site of the shooting Friday evening.

On June 16, a 14-year-old was shot while walking in an alley in the 1000 block of Bloomfield Street, and a man was shot in the abdomen June 4 in the 500 block of Olive Street.

A June 5 shooting in the 1300 block of Village Lane, outside city limits, sent a man to the hospital with serious injuries that required surgery after two unidentified suspects reportedly fired into his home, striking him multiple times.

Last week, the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department announced the County Law Enforcement Restitution Fund Board had authorized $10,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the Village Lane shooting.

The board also authorized $10,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect in Dibert's death.

-- Reporter Savanna Maue contributed some information for this article.

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