Thirty-one years after the crime occurred, Melvin Lavon Shields, age 51, was convicted on Thursday of two counts of premeditated murder in connection with the deaths of Jolene Jones, 27, and the Rev. Steve Ray, 33.
Jones and Ray were shot to death on April 28, 1988, near 19th and Osage in Kansas City, Kansas. Shields was a resident of Wichita, Kansas.
According to a spokesman for the Wyandotte County District Attorney, the district attorney’s office never gave up on this case, and worked diligently with retired and active detectives with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Johnson County Crime Laboratory and the then-Metro Squad.
Shields, who was being held on a $1 million bond, was charged in Wyandotte County District Court on April 20, 2016, under the previous district attorney.
