The Assassination of Leon Jordan

Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on July 15, 1970, Leon Jordan — co-founder of the Black political club Freedom Inc. and a Missouri state representative — was shot and killed by shotgun fire outside his Green Duck Tavern in Kansas City.¹² At the time of his death he was widely described as the most powerful Black politician in Missouri.¹ An early prosecution collapsed, and the killing remained officially unsolved for roughly 40 years. A 2010–2011 Kansas City Star reinvestigation led by reporter Mike McGraw (with Glenn Rice) prompted the Kansas City Police Department to reopen its oldest cold case; investigators ultimately concluded who they believed was responsible, but because the identified suspects were dead, no living person was charged.³⁴⁵

The killing (July 15, 1970)

Leon Jordan was killed in the early-morning hours of July 15, 1970, as he was leaving the Green Duck Tavern, a bar he owned at 26th and Prospect.¹² According to accounts of the shooting, a vehicle pulled alongside him as he walked toward his car and a gunman fired multiple shotgun blasts, killing him at the scene.¹⁶ Jordan was 64 years old.¹

A former police detective, U.S. Army veteran, and OSS-trained adviser to Liberia’s national police, Jordan had by 1970 become a defining figure in Kansas City’s Black political life through Freedom Inc., the political organization he co-founded in 1962 with Bruce R. Watkins to build Black voting power and elect Black candidates.¹ He was serving in the Missouri House of Representatives at the time of his death.¹ (For the full biography see leon-jordan.)

The original investigation + decades unsolved

The 1970 killing drew intense attention but produced no lasting conviction. In the early 1970s a grand jury returned indictments against three men — James A. Willis, Maynard Cooper, and James “Doc” Dearborn — in connection with the slaying.⁴⁶ The case against them fell apart: Willis was acquitted after presenting an alibi that he had been out of town, and the charges against Cooper and Dearborn were dropped.⁴⁶ No one was convicted, and the murder settled into the status of an open, unsolved case for roughly four decades.³⁴

The killing of a sitting Black legislator who had built an independent political base fueled lasting speculation about motive — ranging from organized-crime interests to local political rivalries — none of which produced charges at the time.⁴⁶ “ (a definitive contemporaneous account of every investigative dead end in the 1970s case has not been verified for this page)

The 2010-2011 Kansas City Star reinvestigation + grand jury

While preparing coverage for the 40th anniversary of the killing in 2010, Kansas City Star reporters — principally Mike McGraw, with Glenn Rice — reexamined the case and located long-missing evidence, including the murder weapon and old fingerprint cards.³⁵ Their reporting, along with pressure from civil-rights advocate Alvin Sykes, persuaded the Kansas City Police Department to reopen what was described as its oldest cold case.³⁵

The renewed investigation produced a roughly 900-page police report completed in 2011.⁴⁵ As reported by the Star, police informants tied to a local “Black Mafia” described the killing as a favor to North End organized-crime interests, said to have been arranged by liquor-store owner “Shotgun Joe” Centimano, who allegedly supplied the weapon and recruited the shooters; the report also stated that mob boss Nicholas Civella was said to have given his “blessing” to the killing.⁴⁵ These conclusions are attributed to the police report and Kansas City Star reporting; they identify named individuals — most of them long deceased — as suspects rather than as persons proven guilty in court.⁴⁵ The case was effectively closed in 2011 without new charges, because the people identified as responsible were already dead.⁴⁵

Legacy

Jordan’s death did not dissolve Freedom Inc., which remained a force in Kansas City politics, and his name endured in the civic landscape — including the Leon M. Jordan memorial and recognition of the Green Duck site as part of the city’s African American heritage.²⁷ The 2010s reinvestigation and the surrounding coverage renewed public attention to both the man and the unsolved nature of his death, and a later documentary revisited his life and assassination around the 50th anniversary.⁶⁷

Significance to Kansas City

The assassination removed, at its peak, the most influential Black political leader in Missouri and one of the architects of organized Black political power in Kansas City.¹ That a sitting legislator could be gunned down and the case go unsolved for 40 years became part of the city’s civil-rights memory — a marker of both Jordan’s stature and of how long official answers were withheld. The eventual Kansas City Star reinvestigation also stands as a notable example of local journalism reopening a dormant case, even where the passage of time foreclosed any courtroom resolution.³⁴⁵

Sources

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Leon Jordan” (accessed June 2026). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Jordan ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. African American Heritage Trail of Kansas City — “Green Duck Tavern” (accessed June 2026). https://aahtkc.org/greenducktavern ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. KCUR — “Police Reopen 40-year-old Unsolved Murder of Political Leader Leon Jordan” (Sept. 13, 2010). https://www.kcur.org/community/2010-09-13/police-reopen-40-year-old-unsolved-murder-of-political-leader-leon-jordan ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Columbia Missourian — “Police send report on 1970 slaying to prosecutor.” https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/police-send-report-on-1970-slaying-to-prosecutor/article_cc82b041-51de-5a68-be37-ebe6fd94c65f.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

5. KCUR — “Book Explores Life And Legacy Of Pioneering Political Leader Leon Jordan” (Jan. 15, 2013), noting the Kansas City Star reinvestigation by Mike McGraw and Glenn Rice. https://www.kcur.org/community/2013-01-15/book-explores-life-and-legacy-of-pioneering-political-leader-leon-jordan ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

6. JimmyCsays — “Leon Jordan: An enduring murder mystery” (July 15, 2010). https://jimmycsays.com/2010/07/15/leon-jordan-a-40-year-old-murder-mystery/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

7. KSHB 41 — “New documentary shines light on Kansas City civil rights leader assassinated 50 years ago.” https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/new-documentary-shines-light-on-kansas-city-civil-rights-leader-assassinated-50-years-ago ↩ ↩²