Man charged in fatal Platte County shooting
PLATTE CITY, Mo. (News-Press NOW) -- A 34-year-old man has been charged with second-degree murder in the January shooting death of a Platte City sports reporter.
County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd held a press conference Wednesday and announced that his office has charged Ruslan Huseynov with causing the death of 50-year-old Dennis Sharkey. Sharkey was a sports reporter for the local newspaper, the Platte County Citizen.
Huseynov also faces charges of armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.
According to the Platte County Sheriff's office, the incident happened between 6:30 and 7 p.m. Jan. 10 on southbound Interstate 29 near Northwest 72nd Street. The sheriff's office investigated the incident early on as road rage. Investigators received information that Sharkey and another vehicle had stopped on the interstate and the suspect got out of his vehicle and fired a single shot in to Sharkey's vehicle.
When Kansas City police officers responded to the area, they found Sharkey in his vehicle unresponsive and he appeared to have suffered a gunshot wound. He was transported to an area hospital and later pronounced dead.
A search warrant related to data from Sharkey's phone showed communication on the night of the shooting with a cell phone tower near the location where an ATF canine found a single 9mm shell casing.
That phone lead investigators to Huseynov's phone that was in a vehicle that stopped on I-29 around the time of the shooting, according to court documents.
On Tuesday, authorities interviewed Huseynov and he allegedly confirmed his cellphone number denied owning a gun, according to court documents. However, a search warrant was executed at his residence and authorities located a 9mm Stoeger pistol in a safe in his bedroom.
Court documents also said testing by the Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory confirmed that the shell casing located at the scene of the crime and the bullet, removed from Sharkey’s body during the autopsy, were identified and verified. They allege the pistol recovered from Huseynov’s bedroom was the weapon used.
Huseynov is being held in the Platte County Jail without bond.
