Man whose dad was killed gets death-row scholarship

JOPLIN, Mo. -- A young Kansas man whose father was gunned down nearly eight years ago in a hotel parking lot is getting a tuition boost from an unusual source as he heads into his freshman year at a Missouri college.

Colby Leeper has been awarded a $1,500 scholarship from a not-for-profit organization run by death-row inmates, the Joplin Globe reported.

The organization, Compassion, decides who gets the awards after reviewing essays the applicants submit. The money is raised through donations and the sale of inmate art.

Leeper already has track-and-field and academic scholarships to attend Missouri Southern State University in Joplin.

His dad, Edward "Brian" Leeper Jr., was 33 in November 2008 and had been staying in a second-story room at the Stratford House Inn in Wichita when he walked down to the parking lot about 11:30 p.m.

A car pulled up, and a witness heard five shots ring out. The driver, Josh Matchett, later was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and is serving a 20-year sentence, Colby Leeper said.

He remembers his shock when his mother pulled him out of his fifth-grade classroom and told him about his dad. He said he doesn't know why Matchett killed his father.

"It was something that happened," he said. "I don't really talk about it all that often."

Leeper wrote in his application essay he has learned not to hate, and he's empathetic toward Matchett's children.