Tyrone Venney

Tyrone Venney, 52, was kicked, hit with a glass bottle and urinated on during an attack on Jan. 1, 2024, on North Jefferson Avenue, in the Downtown West neighborhood of St. Louis. Police quickly arrested two young men at a nearby community of tiny homes designed for the homeless. They were charged with assault. But in December, the assault case was elevated to homicide after Venney died at a nursing home in Illinois. Monroe County Coroner Bob Hill said Thursday that Venney died from complications of “blunt cervical trauma” and that the attack had made him a quadriplegic. Branden Lee Leachman and Nathan Kehn were charged Dec. 12, 2024, with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and first-degree robbery.