Baron Li’s life was forever altered on the morning of July 10, 2020. As he walked to his car outside his home in Washington, a gunman fired several shots, striking Li multiple times.
Li survived the shooting but was left facing an uphill physical recovery that took months and inflicted lasting trauma.
Though the shooter was not immediately identified, authorities in Bellevue, Wash., eventually determined the attack on Li, a father of a young son with special needs, was motivated by a bitter custody dispute.
Police were led to the culprits after tracking a truck that had been seen on surveillance footage near the scene for several hours on July 10. The truck was driven by 17-year-old Quincy Mendez, who acted as the getaway driver for his friend Joseph Good, also 17, who fired the shots at Li.
The attempted murder of Li is the subject of “Teenage Assassins,” the upcoming episode of People Magazine Investigates, premiering Monday, Dec. 9, at 9/8c on Investigation Discovery and streaming on Max. (An exclusive clip is shown below).
However, the teens had no obvious connection to Li — until police discovered that Good had been in contact with Shaerin Kelley, 30, Li’s ex-wife and the mother of his then-6-year-old son Arik.
Authorities later found that Kelley had enlisted the two teens to carry out the crime, promising to pay them for their services.
Before the shooting, Li and his second wife, Didee, had moved to Washington from Nevada to get custody of Arik, who had previously been removed from Kelley’s care.
Because of misdiagnosis when he was born, Arik was left with significant physical and mental disabilities. A subsequent lawsuit led to a trust fund established to pay for his hefty medical care costs.
When Li was granted custody of Arik, he was also given control of Arik’s trust fund. Police believed that Kelley had planned the shooting as part of a ploy to take over the valuable trust fund.
“My son could have been killed — that’s what people don’t see,” Li told us in 2021. “Everyone sees a shooting — a woman disgruntled at her ex-husband. But I wasn’t the target — my son has always been the target.”
Before she was eventually charged, Li had said he believed his ex-wife was behind the attack.
“I knew it wasn’t random, which is what the police initially tried to suggest,” Li said.
Li was nearly killed in the shooting, having been struck nine times. He underwent several surgeries and was in and out of consciousness. Even after he survived the attack he required months of rehabilitation.
In total, Li was shot in the chest, legs, arms and hip. As previously reported that it took Li 15 months before he could return to his job at a Toyota dealership.
In 2023, Kelley pleaded guilty in connection with the case and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Mendez pleaded guilty to an assault charge and was sentenced to more than eight years in a juvenile detention center, while Good entered a guilty plea to an attempted murder and received over 12 years.
