Man found guilty of murder in 2020 fatal shooting of Missouri officer
Defendant Thomas Kinworthy Jr. sits in the courtroom during his first-degree murder trial on Thursday, May 2, 2024, in the 22nd Circuit Court in St. Louis. Kinworthy was found guilty of first-degree murder and other counts in the death of St. Louis officer Tamarris Bohannon, 29, who was shot and killed, and officer Arlando Bailey who was injured during a home invasion in August 2020. Credit: AP/Laurie Skrivan
ST. LOUIS — A man charged with killing a St. Louis police officer in 2020 was found guilty of murder Thursday.
After a nearly two-week trial, a St. Louis jury convicted Thomas Kinworthy, 46, of first-degree murder and eight other charges in the death of 29-year-old Officer Tamarris Bohannon, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Bohannon had responded to a call on Aug. 29, 2020, after an armed man ordered a family out of their home and barricaded himself inside, police said. Officers were searching for another reported shooting victim when Bohannon was shot in the head and a second officer was shot in the leg, according to police.
Bohannon died the next day. He had been with the department for 3 1/2 years and was survived by his wife and three children.
Kinworthy did not dispute at trial that he had barricaded himself inside a St. Louis home and shot two officers, killing one of them, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The jury took about three hours to convict Kinworthy of first-degree murder, first-degree assault, burglary, resisting arrest and three counts of armed criminal action, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Conviction on a first-degree murder charge carries a mandatory term of life in prison.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 27, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Defendant Thomas Kinworthy Jr. leaves the courtroom after the jury was dismissed to start deliberating during his first-degree murder trial Thursday, May 2, 2024, in the 22nd Circuit Court in St. Louis. Kinworthy was found guilty of first-degree murder and other counts in the death of St. Louis officer Tamarris Bohannon, 29, who was shot and killed and officer Arlando Bailey who was injured during a home invasion in August 2020. Credit: AP/Laurie Skrivan
Kinworthy has a criminal record dating to the 1990s, when he spent nine months in prison for a drug crime in St. Louis County.
Court records show that Kinworthy was convicted in a 1998 road rage incident in Brevard County, Florida. After the car Kinworthy was in rammed a Ford Mustang, Kinworthy shot the Mustang driver, causing him to lose three fingers. Kinworthy was convicted in 2001 and served six years in prison.
