RFT 📰

An accused cop killer currently on trial in St. Louis endured years of childhood abuse at the hands of both parents, an upbringing that a forensic psychologist says ultimately led to the August 2020 psychotic episode in which Thomas Kinworthy killed St. Louis police officer Tamarris Bohannon. The prosecution and defense agree on the basic facts of the case. On August 29, 2020, Kinworthy was armed when he ran into a house on Hartford Street in Tower Grove South.

Saint Louis Art Museum will go back to the past this summer — with two fan favorites making encore presentations at its beloved Art Hill film series. Those films, Back to the Future and Meet Me in St. Louis, were voted on by fans. The sci-fi comedy classic will be screened on July 12 and the Judy Garland musical on July 19.

An outraged letter signed by more than 100 faculty members, staff and graduate students was delivered at noon today to Washington University’s administration demanding it stop suppressing peaceful student protests for Palestine. “We are writing to express our deep concern at the university’s arbitrary and heavy-handed response to recent student protests against Israel’s ongoing bombardment and starvation of Gaza,” the letter says. Wash U has responded to recent student protests with police presence, including a Pro-Palestine demonstration on April 13 where 12 activists were issued court summons and three were suspended.

An 18-year-old from south city went on a smash-and-grab spree earlier this month, police say, hitting 11 businesses over the course of two consecutive Wednesday nights in April. Police say that on April 10, Leslie James III and two others cruised around in a stolen Hyundai, smashing the windows of the Donut Drive-In in Lindenwood Park, Soulard institutions Molly's and Bogart's, as well as other places, stealing various amounts of money from the businesses. The following Wednesday they did the same thing at the My Marie Caribbean restaurant on Cherokee Street and another business in Benton Park.

My neighbor told me she plans to cut down her tree and my heart stopped. The tree in question is an enormous Japanese maple that covers her yard and spills into my own. In the spring, it splashes a rich red across my bathroom window, and the tree has become such an integral part of my home that I can barely imagine life without it.

Three presidential candidates — President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and Independent Robert F Kennedy Jr. — will split the “pro-war vote.” But the Green Party candidate argues she is the only anti-war candidate and has shifted her campaign to focus on America’s involvement in Israel’s ongoing attacks of Gaza. “We are the one campaign… that will end this genocide,” she proclaims. Dr. Jill Stein is running for president as the Green Party candidate for the third time and has never garnered more than 1.1 percent of the vote (and when that happened, in 2016, Democrats bitterly blamed her for costing Hillary Clinton the presidency).

Rapper Joey Bada$$ will be gracing St. Louis with a performance this evening, but unless you're the type of millionaire who can afford tuition at Washington University or the type of super-genius who gets to go there for cheap on account of your superior intellect, you are not invited. The Brooklyn native will be the headlining act at the school's Spring WILD event, held this year on Mudd Field and open exclusively to Wash U students. Opening up the show will be pop singer Iyaz, pop-rock band THEM and St. Louis' Non Euclidean Geometry.

I haven’t seen a movie that edges its audience with more cruel glee than Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s latest horny-in-theory story of complicated romance. Anyone expecting a moist-and-sweaty Jules et Jim set in the competitive world of professional tennis, which is what I thought when I kept seeing the trailer, will be slightly disappointed (and even a bit impressed) by how much this movie teases you. Whether it’s in the bedroom or on the court, the Call Me by Your Name director goes to extreme lengths to make sure the characters — and the audience — don’t reach a climax until the time is just right. 

Hailing from St. Louis, where the sounds of live music and the aroma of cannabis intertwine in a classic harmony, a new strain captures the essence of both worlds. Mississippi Nights, cultivated by Vibe Cannabis, is more than just a nod to the legendary music venue that once vibrated with the sounds of future legends. It's a tribute, a memory encapsulated in the form of a groundbreaking strain by Jay Wills, the visionary behind Tree1Four Genetics.

After years of struggle and community backlash, Peter & Paul Community Services closed on a building it says will serve as a new and expanded shelter in north St. Louis. The Little Sisters of the Poor site (3225 North Florissant Avenue) will replace the organization’s 60-bed shelter in Soulard as well as plans to open in a more industrial site nearby. “The biz owners around Sidney Street were dead set against welcoming us there,” an agency spokeswoman explains of the site just east of Soulard where they had won city approval to move.

Administrators at the St. Louis City Justice Center wasted no time violating a judge’s order telling them to allow attorneys to pass their clients legal paperwork relevant to their cases. According to an email that public defender Matthew Mahaffey sent to top jail administrators, one of his attorneys went to meet a client yesterday in the jail and found the paper pass to be locked.  That was just one day after Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Hogan wrote an order to both Jail Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah and Sheriff Vernon Betts declaring they stop any policies that restrict detainees’ access to counsel. 

The 25-year-old man accused of stomping on a teen girl's head outside a St. Louis County McDonald's has a litany of previous arrests for assault, including one conviction in the City of St. Louis for which he is currently on probation. These details came to light at a bond hearing for Johnny Ricks, who is facing a first-degree assault charge stemming from the April 7 incident. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Krista Peyton ordered Ricks to remain in jail on a $150,000 bond, but not before a back-and-forth between prosecutor Te'Arie Williams and Ricks' attorney Derek Cortez.

St. Louis’ 21c Museum Hotel was named one of the “41 Best New Hotels in North America and Europe 2024” by Esquire last month.  21c Museum Hotel (1528 Locust Street) opened last year in Downtown West in the city’s old YMCA building. While nodding to the building’s past by keeping the gym’s flooring, a renovated iteration of the YMCA's lap pool (now the Locust Street Athletic and Swim Club), keeping the wood paneling and more, the hotel offers luxurious rooms, art galleries, a top-notch bar and incredible, immersive art throughout. 

Say goodbye to the signs that once flourished along Missouri highways, announcing that civic groups or grieving family members were cleaning up the nearby litter: The Missouri Department of Transportation has scrapped its Adopt-a-Highway program. The state agency's decision follows its suspension of the 37-year-old program last May — which came about after family members adopted a section of I-44 in the memory of a man convicted of killing a Kirkwood police officer. Missouri's Adopt-a-Highway survived a legal battle that allowed the Ku Klux Klan to adopt a portion of highway, but it apparently couldn't survive adoption by the family of Kevin Johnson.

The campaign director for a book-burning Missouri Secretary of State candidate took the mic at St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ “Cabinet in Community” forum on Tuesday — blasting her as a “diversity mayor” and blaming her for recent high-profile incidents that happened far outside the City of St. Louis’ borders. Jones quickly shut down Maicoll Gomez, who is the brother and campaign manager of Valentina Gomez. A 24-year-old Benton Park resident, Valentina Gomez is attempting to fight the culture wars in the Republican primary to replace Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft.

Allegations of misconduct have roiled Tower Grove Park in recent months — and have apparently led to its director of development being fired.  In February, a group of Tower Grove Park employees wrote a letter to the board of commissioners alleging problems with three senior leaders, claiming “serious instances of sexism, racism and a pervasive lack of professionalism in various manners of communication.”  The three senior leaders named in the letter are Executive Director Bill Reininger, Director of Operations and Special Projects William Rein and Director of Development David Lauber.

Are the young things wafting about the 12th floor of this shimmering Westport Plaza office building too young to know about Mad Men? Are they not old enough to have had bonkers crushes on Jon Hamm, because who didn't? Probably.

A race for the Missouri House of Representatives is now splattered in controversy as one candidate in St. Charles County is accusing the other of having operated a “paintball gun trading scam” — one that he claims resulted in seven felonies against him. Missouri law prohibits people running for office if they have "been found guilty of or pled guilty to a felony." The lawsuit filed Monday by Max Calfo asks a judge to find Michael Costlow ineligible both to run for statewide office and to hold his current position in local government because of the past felony charges against him.

The cocktail wizards behind the Vandy will soon have another locus for their high-proof wizardry. Assuming approval of a conditional use permit by Webster Groves City Council, Matt and Jess Longueville are on course to open cocktail bar Off Elm at 8709 Big Bend Boulevard — two doors down from Bagel Union — sometime in the fall. Since 2017, the Longuevilles have owned STL Barkeep, a kind of moveable cocktail operation with an arsenal of bartenders, which hosts pop-ups at events around town.

For 25 years, Gene Salecker worked as a university police officer. There, Salecker met his wife, a professor, who inspired him to transition to the classroom, where he taught eighth grade for 12 years. Upon retiring in 2015, he became a full-time military historian, writing seven books in total on the Civil War and World War II.