Man shot to death on Henderson Avenue in Cape Girardeau

A Cape Girardeau man was found shot to death in a vehicle early Friday morning.

Joshua Edward Dibert, 34, of East Cape Rock Drive in Cape Girardeau, was found in a vehicle with multiple gunshot wounds to his chest, the Cape Girardeau/Bollinger County Major Case Squad reported in a news release.

Cape Girardeau police officers responding to a 2:18 a.m. call about shots fired in the area of William Street and Henderson Avenue found Dibert in the driver's seat of a vehicle parked near the intersection of Henderson Avenue and Good Hope Street, the squad reported.

Sgt. Jason Selzer of the Cape Girardeau Police Department said the shooting Friday was Cape Girardeau's first homicide of 2014.

An autopsy is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday, Cape Girardeau County Coroner John Clifton said.

Officers still were at the scene and appeared to be interviewing potential witnesses about 6:45 a.m. Friday.

Police do not have any suspects in the case, and in an email to the Southeast Missourian on Friday morning, Selzer said authorities do not know how many people may have been involved.

The shooting is one of several in the Cape Girardeau area recently, but Selzer said at this stage of the investigation, police do not have reason to believe it is related to any of the others.

"At this time, we don't have anything that links this shooting to any other case," he said.

Police have responded to at least two other incidents involving gunfire this week.

Early Monday morning, police investigated a report of seven to eight shots being fired in the 600 block of Penny Avenue. No one was injured in that case, but officers found shell casings and spent rounds nearby.

On Monday evening, a 14-year-old was shot while walking in an alley in the 1000 block of Bloomfield Street.

Earlier this month, unknown suspects shot into a home in the 1300 block of Village Lane in Cape Girardeau County, striking the occupant multiple times. The June 5 shooting came just a day after a man was shot in the abdomen in the 500 block of Olive Street.

A pair of shootings were reported late May 21 or early May 22 -- one involving a man who told police he was "somewhere over on the south side" when he was shot in the leg, and one in which a woman was shot in the buttock in the 2800 block of Whitener Street.

Darin Hickey, public information officer for the Cape Girardeau Police Department, has said police responded to more than 100 calls of shots fired last year. Many of those calls came from Zone 4, an area roughly bounded by William Street to the north, West End Boulevard to the west and Highway 74 to the south.

Cape Girardeau saw five homicides in 2013, all involving guns. Three of those homicides occurred in Zone 4.

This spring, Cape Girardeau police joined forces with officers from the Southeast Missouri communities of Sikeston, Charleston and Poplar Bluff to form the SEMO Street Crimes Task Force, which targets areas of each town with a high rate of gun violence.

In its inaugural outing in late April, the task force arrested 16 people in Cape Girardeau, Hickey said in early May.

From Nov. 1, 2013, to March 31, Cape Girardeau police received 83 reports of gun crimes, up from 49 for the same period the previous year, Hickey said.

Anyone with information about the shooting Friday -- or any other crime -- is asked to call the Cape Girardeau Police Department at 335-6621.

epriddy@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

Good Hope Street and Henderson Avenue, Cape Girardeau, MO