Prosecutors allege a Missouri mom was murdered this month after two men kidnapped her and made her withdraw large sums of money from her bank account.
Michelle Hampton, a mother of a teenage daughter, was kidnapped from her home in Clayton, Mo., on Nov. 20 and was later found dead in a St. Louis alleyway with several gunshot wounds, federal prosecutors in Missouri’s Eastern District said in a release.
In the interim, she was brought by her kidnappers to a bank and forced to withdraw $10,000 cash at the drive-through window, prosecutors say — a request that was rejected by staff. She could only withdraw $2,000.
Police have arrested two suspects. Anjuan Q. Mosby, 43, was charged Saturday with kidnapping resulting in death, an offense for which he could face the death penalty if convicted. Mosby was the boyfriend of Hampton’s twin sister, Samantha, per KSDK5.
Meanwhile, Mosby’s alleged accomplice, Emmanuel Suarez, 36, was arrested Tuesday and charged with felony weapon possession, for which he could face 15 years behind bars.
Both men are also facing a litany of state-level charges, including first-degree murder, robbery, and kidnapping. They each have multiple criminal convictions going back decades, court records show.
A lawyer for Mosby declined to comment; information on attorneys for Suarez wasn’t immediately available.
Samantha had encountered her twin around 7:15 a.m. on Nov. 20, finding her in the driver’s seat of her Nissan Rogue and an unknown person in the passenger’s seat holding her at gunpoint, their other sister Tamara wrote in a GoFundMe fundraising plea.
Samantha attempted to follow her sister’s car, but another vehicle attempted to run her off the road and shot at her and her child, barely missing them, according to Tamara. (This version of events is also asserted in a motion for pretrial detention filed by federal prosecutors in Mosby’s case.)
According to the motion, Mosby gave the victim the option to run away. When she did not, he fatally shot her.
A federal judge ordered Mosby to be held without bail pretrial, and federal prosecutors are seeking the same for Suarez.
On the GoFundMe, Hampton is being remembered by her sister as a “beautiful person” who was widely adored and “loved her daughter more than anything.” She had one teenage daughter and also took care of her three nephews, two teenagers and one 7-year-old.
“She was selfless in all she did and she was by far an amazing sister and friend,” wrote Tamara. “She never deserved anything but the best and she was handed the worst.”
The family is raising money for funeral expenses and help with raising the victim’s children; they had raised $14,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
